Former Kaohsiung County commissioner Yu Chen Yueh-ying (余陳月瑛) died on Sunday night at the age of 87 surrounded by her family.
She passed away at the Kaoshiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Greater Kaohsiung, her family said yesterday.
Yu Chen’s body was sent back to the family’s old residence in Ciaotou yesterday morning.
A member of the “Yu family” that dominated then-Kaohsiung County politics for more than three decades, Yu Chen was the daughter-in-law of Yu Teng-fa (余登發), who was the county’s commissioner from 1960 to 1963.
She began her political career by running for the Taiwan Provincial Council in 1963 and serving in the body for four terms.
She narrowly lost a bid in 1981 to head the now defunct Kaohsiung County government.
She lost to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) adversary Tsai Ming-yao (蔡明耀) by only a few thousand votes.
However, in 1982, she was elected to serve in the Legislative Yuan, where she defeated Tsai in the election for Kaohsiung County magistrate in 1985. She held the position for two terms, until 1993.
Yu Chen was succeeded by her son, Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), who also headed the county for two four-year terms and served as interior minister from 2002 to 2004 in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government.
Yu Chen was an adviser to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when the DPP held power.
Greater Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) expressed her condolences over Yu Chen’s death and commended her as a model of women’s participation in public affairs.
Kaohsiung County merged with Kaohsiung City to form a single special municipality on Dec. 25, 2010.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult