National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), former Hsinchu mayor Lin Chih-chien’s (林智堅) thesis adviser, would not teach at National Taiwan University (NTU) in the coming academic year, the university said yesterday.
The announcement came hours after local Chinese-language media reported that Chen’s profile had been pulled from the faculty information page of the university’s Graduate Institute of National Development Web site, leading to speculation that he had resigned.
Chen was taken off the faculty list after he requested no teaching responsibilities be given to him this year due to rising tensions with China, which leaves him with little time outside of his duties at the bureau, the university said.
Photo: CNA
He remains a professor at the school and no resignation has been offered or accepted, the university said, citing rules governing public school educators.
Chen has been embroiled in allegations that Lin in 2017 plagiarized his master’s thesis from the thesis of another student, Yu Cheng-huang (余正煌), which was published the previous year. Chen at the time served as adviser for both students.
The two papers were found to have used identical data sets and similar methodology, and contained identical typographical errors in analyzing the 2014 Hsinchu mayoral election, which Lin had won.
Chen defended the former mayor, saying that Lin was the original author and Yu had read a draft of Lin’s study before writing his own paper.
However, the NTU academic ethics committee on Wednesday last week ruled against Lin on grounds that his paper was more than 40 percent similar to Yu’s and that Lin did not provide a draft of his thesis predating Yu’s study.
The committee recommend revoking Lin’s degree and announced the launch of an investigation into Chen for possible failure in his responsibilities as adviser.
Two days later, Lin bowed out of the Taoyuan mayoral race.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS