National Chenchi University professor Chou Li-fang (周麗芳) yesterday was appointed Taipei’s third deputy mayor, following a two-month search.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) praised Chou’s academic and administrative experience, expressing his confidence in her ability to shoulder responsibility for departments including education, labor, sports and cultural affairs, as well as events such as the 2016 World Design Capital and 2017 Universiade.
In addition to her academic career, Chou has served as director of the university’s Office of Research and Development and deputy chief executive of the National Health Insurance Administration.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
While Ko’s first two deputy mayors were appointed in December last year, his search for a third has been held up for almost two months after he was unable to find a willing candidate with strong corporate executive experience, something he earlier attributed to the low pay offered by the municipal government.
“Teachers do not make very much in the first place,” he said yesterday in response to question on whether Chou’s salary had been a sticking point.
Taipei spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said that Chou was chosen from among 56 valid candidates who applied online in response to a Facebook post by Ko.
“I am someone who is willing to face challenges,” Chou said when asked why she accepted the position, adding that she was drawn to the position because of her desire to outline a cultural vision for the capital’s future.
On coordinating the 2017 Universiade, Chou said she would emphasize frugality and honing the event’s message.
“We hope to economize as much as possible, while still maximizing the benefits of the event,” she said.
“When the competitors come to Taiwan, aside from the competition itself, we hope they will serve as bees that carry back a rich pollen of memories to their home countries, aiding our diplomacy,” she said.
Chou is viewed as pan-blue due to her title of “special researcher” to the National Policy Foundation, a think tank associated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
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
RSS