Wang Mei-yu (王美玉), president of Chinese-language newspaper the China Times, was appointed to a six-year term as a Control Yuan member yesterday, the first acting media professional to be tapped for the job.
The Presidential Office yesterday unveiled its list of 29 members of the fifth-term Control Yuan. It was the second time President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made the appointments during his presidency.
Wang was the third veteran journalist appointed to the position, following Huang Chao-heng (黃肇珩), who was general manager of Cheng Chung Book Co when nominated in 1993, and incumbent Control Yuan member Wu Feng-shan (吳豐山), who was previously a minister without portfolio.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“My 32-year career in journalism came to an end today,” Wang said.
Wang said she accepted the nomination and immediately resigned as president of the China Times, part of the Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團) owned by Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明).
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) yesterday questioned Wang’s qualifications for the position.
“A member of the Control Yuan must be above partisanship and apolitical, but Wang has long worked with a media outlet that holds strong political views,” he said.
Among the 29 nominees, including Election Commission Chairperson Chang Po-ya (張博雅) being appointed president of the Control Yuan and former Council of Indigenous Peoples minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川) being nominated as vice president, only seven were incumbent members.
Liao Pen-chuan (廖本全), an associate professor at National Taipei University’s Department of Real Estate and Built Environment, was disappointed with the appointment of Shih Hung-chih (施鴻志), a retired professor of urban planning, because of Shih’s record handling controversial land expropriations.
Shih had demanded that reporters be excluded from a review of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, one of the government’s flagship urban renewal projects that covers more than 3,000 hectares of land and affects more than 7,000 households, last year when he chaired a meeting as a member of the Ministry of the Interior’s urban planning commission.
The reason Shih then cited for the ejection order was that public interest was not a factor being considered by the commission.
As a professional expert whom the government has long consulted with on urban renewal and planning issues over the years, Shih has overlooked the importance of public participation in the decisionmaking process, Liao said.
The way he handled the review of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project showed Shih disregarded the values of democracy, human rights, justice and sustainability, which are all vital to ensure that such projects are in the best interests of the public, Liao said.
With the departure of Control Yuan members Ma Yi-kung (馬以工), Liu Yuh-san (劉玉山) and Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), who have identified several major flaws in land expropriation cases over the years, and the appointment of Shih, the only candidate among the 29 with a background in urban planning, people facing eviction from their homes as urban renewal efforts mushroom could be left helpless when they turn to the Control Yuan for help, Liao said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS