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.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report