President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nomination of Control Yuan members on Thursday drew more negative reaction from the opposition and other critics yesterday, with one pundit saying that Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had been involved in the “politically motivated” nomination process.
Wang Mei-yu (王美玉), former president of the Chinese-language China Times, made the list of 29 nominees because of Wu, who could have a personal reason for his endorsement, radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻) wrote in her column published yesterday on my-formosa.com, an online news Web site.
Wu, a reporter at the China Times before entering politics, was a close friend of Want Want China Times Groups chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), who owns several media outlets, including the China Time, magazines, television companies and online news Web sites, Chou said.
Recommending Wang, who is Tsai’s right-hand man, could benefit Wu media-wise and give him a boost in his competition with other potential 2016 presidential aspirants, including New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential primary next year, Chou said.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the Control Yuan nominations were “horrible” and appeared to be Ma’s way of rewarding his confidants — given that most of the nominees are controversial figures or former government officials with bad reputations.
“It seemed to us that Ma could care less about what other people think, because his term will be up in two years,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) told a press conference in Taipei.
As an example of a problematic nominee, Lin cited former Food and Drug Administration director-general Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲), who was accused of covering up cases of starch products contaminated with maleic acid during a nationwide scandal in May last year.
Former Council of Indigenous Peoples minister Chang Jen-hsiang (章仁香), former KMT lawmaker Chiang Yi-wen (江綺雯), former Public Construction Commission minister Fan Liang-shiow (范良銹) and former Council for Economic Planning and Development deputy minister Nancy Chen (陳小紅) were all Ma’s subordinates, Lin said.
Chang’s performance at the Council of Indigenous Peoples had been criticized by other KMT lawmakers, while Fan was also accused of malfeasance when he served as director of the Central Emergency Operation Center during Typhoon Morakot, which left 677 dead, 22 missing and caused more than NT$100 billion (US$3.3 billion at current exchange rates) in damages in August 2009.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
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