Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) should apologize to the nation for his “dereliction” in supervising public safety, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
Regulations stipulate that the Executive Yuan should hold an interagency public safety meeting every two months, but the last one was held a year ago, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) said.
Public safety should be the premier’s “top priority,” Wang said, urging Su to immediately call an interagency meeting to discuss which municipalities and counties need public safety improvements.
Photo: CNA
Regarding the personal safety of women, President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has been “seriously negligent,” Wang added.
The Ministry of the Interior has refused to pass a proposed anti-stalking and harassment bill that has been stalled in the Legislative Yuan for years, Wang said, calling on the ministry to propose a version of the bill as soon as possible.
The KMT’s comments follow the abduction and murder of a 24-year-old Malaysian woman who was a student at Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan. A 28-year-old suspect surnamed Liang (梁) has reportedly confessed to strangling the victim before dumping her body in Kaohsiung.
KMT Cultural and Communications Committee deputy director-general Huang Tzu-che (黃子哲) said the incident shows the Democratic Progressive Party administration’s lack of concern for public safety.
Huang asked how the government could expect foreign students studying in Taiwan to feel safe given the “international scandal.”
The Food Safety Board, which should hold a meeting every three months, has not held a meeting since June 3 last year, while the last interagency public safety meeting was held on Oct. 28 last year, the KMT said, citing information from the Executive Yuan’s Web site.
In September, noting that a Food Safety Board meeting had not been held in more than a year, the party had urged the Executive Yuan to convene one to discuss the potential effects of its decision to allow imports of US pork containing ractopamine from Jan. 1.
“How many more meetings should the Executive Yuan have held that were not held?” Huang asked.
Several other meetings that the Executive Yuan is required to hold — such as the National Council for Sustainable Development, the Social Welfare Promotional Committee and the Drug Prevention and Control Board — are months overdue, he said.
“Su Tseng-chang would rather scold than hold a meeting,” he said.
Yesterday, Su said that it was his decision not to hold the interagency public safety meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Executive Yuan has asked the public not to hold ‘unnecessary meetings,’” Su said. “It is leading by example.”
Instead, discussions on specific public safety issues have been held during Executive Yuan meetings, he added.
However, Huang accused Su of deceiving the public and using the pandemic as an excuse, saying that other interagency meetings have been held since the outbreak began.
If the Executive Yuan is concerned about gatherings during the pandemic, it could hold them via videoconferencing, Huang added.
Additional reporting by CNA
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS