Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday approved the resignation of a Cabinet minister amid allegations that the departing official had an extramarital affair.
The decision was made after a meeting between Jiang and Minister without Portfolio Chen Shi-shuenn (陳希舜) yesterday, Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said yesterday evening.
The resignation came after a report in the latest edition of the weekly Next Magazine on Wednesday that said the married Chen, 64, had made seven visits to the residence of Regina Wang (王韋堯), 44, director of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology’s (NTUST) Department of Industrial and Commercial Design, between April 9 and Friday last week.
Each visit began with Wang picking Chen up in her car outside the university in Taipei at about 8pm before heading to her home, where Chen would stay for about three hours, before leaving by himself in a taxi, according to the report.
Chen issued a statement late on Wednesday denying allegations of an affair with Wang, saying they met to discuss business, but adding that they should not have chosen to meet at Wang’s residence.
Chen reportedly met Wang about four years ago, when he was president of the university. As president, Chen signed a collaboration deal with Yulon Nissan Co on design innovation and resource sharing and also received largest single donation ever made to a tertiary vocational training institution in the nation — a pledge of NT$200 million (US$6.08 million) — from Zhuang Yong-shun (莊永順) of Aaeon Technology Co.
Sources have questioned whether Wang’s rapid promotion to the top of her department was linked to her alleged relationship with Chen.
She was an assistant professor during her first six years of teaching at the university before quickly rising through the ranks to become associate professor and then professor.
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:
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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