One day before the inauguration of the new Cabinet, a farewell party was held yesterday for six outgoing Cabinet officials whose offices are located inside the Cabinet complex.
Among the six Cabinet members honored was Vice Premier Lin Hsin-i (林信義). Lin, 58, is the first entrepreneur in the nation's history to become a Cabinet official. His hands-on experience in the private sector and extensive political connections won him recognition from both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party governments.
In 1997, former premier Vincent Siew (
`Taiwan's Lee Iacocca'
In 2000, under the administration of President Chen Shui-bian (
Calling Lin "the ROC government's Lee Iacocca," Premier Yu Shyi-kun lauded Lin for bringing industrial management techniques to the civil sector. Yu gave Lin a ceramic bitter squash in a glass box to show that Lin had helped lead Taiwan through "bitter days."
One of Lin most memorable comments regarding the global and local economic downturn was his calling for the public to brace for "bitter days."
Another of the six was Cabinet Secretary-general Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳), who at 45 is the youngest-ever Cabinet secretary-general and the first woman to hold the position.
`A 24-hour 7-eleven'
Liu was director of the Bureau of Environmental Protection of the Taipei City Government when Chen Shui-bian was Taipei mayor. She later took up the post of deputy commissioner of Taichung County.
Calling Liu a "24-hour 7-Eleven" and an "iron lady," Yu extolled Liu's devotion to her job. Yu has jokingly said that he would like to introduce his 20-something son to Liu, who is still single.
Liu will begin a fellowship of one year at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC next month. She plans to do research on Taiwan's democratization and on the relationship among Taiwan, China and the US.
Also honored was Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
Calling him a "rising star today and tomorrow" and "manager of the government's image," Yu complimented Lin Chia-lung on his work ethic.
calls late at night
"I've learned that he, who has his telephone turned on 24 hours a day, has often gotten telephone calls from female reporters after midnight," Yu said.
"But as far as I understand, it's purely business, so I'm not that worried after all," he said.
The other Cabinet members honored were Ministers without Portfolio Tsai Ching-yen (
Lin Chia-lung will now head the Government Information Office, Chen has been appointed chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs and Yeh will take the top job at the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission.
Earlier yesterday, Yu presented Lin Hsin-i and 13 other Cabinet officials with the highest medals available for civil servants in appreciation of their outstanding service. They included Liu; Tsai; Eugene Chien (
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test