President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday defended his appointment of Vice Premier Sean Chen (陳冲)as premier and said that the new Cabinet would guide the nation through the European debt crisis and boost the economy amid various challenges ahead.
Ma announced the latest appointments during a press release, confirming days of speculation about the appointment of Chen, a former Financial Supervisory Commission chairman, to help the administration address economic issues during the president’s second term.
Ma praised Chen for his experience in working closely with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to promote policies during his term as vice premier and cited his achievements in reviving the nation’s economy, including the signing of a memorandum of understanding on financial supervisory cooperation with China in 2009, which widened access to banks on each side of the Taiwan Strait.
“With Mr Chen’s expertise and experience, I believe he will continue to bring his capabilities to full play in the future and properly handle a possible recess in economy amid European debt crisis,” Ma said.
Chen announced the new Cabinet lineup yesterday afternoon after Wu, the vice president-elect, led his Cabinet in an en masse resignation in the morning.
The president also announced the appointment of Deputy Legislative Speaker Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) as the new Presidential Office secretary-general.
Tseng, who played a key role in organizing and mobilizing grassroot supporters during Ma’s re-election campaign, will replace Wu Jin-lin (伍錦霖), who took over as the Presidential Office secretary-general last year.
Presidential Office spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said the president expected Tseng to incorporate his years of experience in handling legislative matters and local affairs in his new post and help the administration have a better understanding of public opinion.
A reshuffle in the Presidential Office and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will see the deputy executive director of Ma’s re-election camp, Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), become the deputy secretary-general in the Presidential Office, while campaign spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) will serve as deputy spokesperson at the Presidential Office.
KMT Secretary-General Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) is stepping down from his position and will be replaced by Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森).
Ma dismissed speculation about Liao’s resignation amid his alleged grudge against Ma’s top aide, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), during the election campaign and praised Liao for his full dedication in handling party affairs.
Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓), who lost in a legislative district contest in Greater Tainan, will take over as head of the KMT’s Organization and Development Committee, which is responsible for election mobilization. Ma’s re-election campaign spokespersons Yin Wei (殷瑋) and Ma Wei-kuo (馬瑋國) will become KMT spokespersons.
Ma will formally announce the new Presidential Office and KMT personnel arrangements on Monday.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching