New Taipei City Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Hung Chia-wen (洪嘉文) is to be appointed the new Department of Sports Affairs commissioner, the Taipei City Government announced yesterday.
“I’m crazy, but I’m not jumping into a pit of fire,” Huang said in response to media inquiries.
The position has been viewed as a “hot potato” since former Taipei City Department of Sports commissioner Yang Jong-her (楊忠和) resigned after only one month in office following controversy that erupted over plans left behind by the previous municipal administration for the 2017 Summer Universiade.
The Universiade is a bi-annual international sports competition for college students organized by the International University Sports Federation, which describes it as being second only to the Olympics.
Hung is an associate professor and PHD graduate of National Taiwan Normal University’s physical education department.
He said that while he has not talked with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) about the details of the Universiade, including controversies over the event’s athletic village and the Taipei Dome — which is set to host the event’s opening and closing ceremonies — he would seek to keep guarantees the event stays on par with international standards while minimizing costs to city taxpayers.
In response to questions, Ko yesterday said Hung’s appointment demonstrates the value of an open selection process in which anyone can apply for a government position before applications are sifted by a selection committee and presented to the mayor’s office for consideration.
He added that he would consider using a similar process for selecting his Universiade chief executive officer, along with the third deputy mayor who is to assist in arranging the event.
In related news, Ko met with Sports Administration Director-General Ho Jow-fei (何卓飛) last night for the first time since he took office on Dec. 25 last year to talk about how the city government and the administration could set up a channel of communication for the organization of the Universaide.
However, Ko seemed displeased when he saw the conference room filled with reporters.
Ho said after a closed-door meeting that both agreed they would communicate directly using a hotline to coordinate over practical matters about the sports event, so some of the urgent issues could be solved quickly.
Ho said they did not talk about the construction of the Taipei Dome, one of the major venues to be used at the Universiade.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods