During his first appearance yesterday in the Legislative Yuan as the Government Information Office (GIO) director-general, former Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) faced a tough crowd of pan-blue legislators who questioned Lin's qualifications.
During questioning, Peoples First Party Legislator Diane Lee (
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Pan-blue legislators asked whether, as former Cabinet spokesman, Lin would transfer his party's doctrine over to his post as GIO head.
The committee meeting was held to discuss unfreezing parts of the GIO budget relating to national media operations, media relations and official government initiative promotions. Because of last year's controversy surrounding the "embedded marketing policy" supported by former GIO director-general Arthur Iap (葉國興), the Legislative Yuan's Education and Culture committee decided to freeze the GIO budget in those areas.
"Embedded marketing" refers to a policy that integrates government agencies' resources to buy air time and advertisement space to promote government initiatives.
Pan-blue legislators also took the hearing as an opportunity to question the GIO's function, saying that the embedded marketing policy and the amount spent on referendum advertising prior to the election clearly marked the GIO as a vehicle for ruling party propaganda.
Although pan-blue supporters unanimously voted to maintain the budget freeze on all three aspects of the GIO budget, enough pro-green legislators were present to push through the unlocking of the three parts.
When asked about his thoughts on his first report, the ever-smiling Lin said, "It went much more smoothly than I expected."
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
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