Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) allegedly manipulated the electronic records of the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday in order to deny a story printed in the morning edition of the Chinese-language United Daily News.
The dispute between Yao and UDN senior political affairs reporter Lee Shun-te (李順德) arose after Lee's story ran in yesterday's paper, which alleged that Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was very upset with Yao during last week's legislative meeting after Yao became angry and decided to leave the review meeting for next year's GIO budget, after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) called him a pizi [ruffian,
Lee's story reported that Hsieh had expressed his unhappiness with Yao during the legislative meeting. The story quoted Hsieh as criticizing Yao for "showing off like a hero" and complaining that Yao's behavior would lead the GIO into monetary problems for next year.
The story also quoted Hsieh as telling Yao that Cabinet members are obliged to be questioned by lawmakers and attend legislative meetings, especially when budgets are being reviewed.
"You cannot simply leave just because you are unhappy. It is not right. This is not a one-man show," Hsieh said.
However, the story was denied outright by Yao and Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). Yao implied that Lee had made up the story.
"Are you happy with the story?" Yao asked Lee in front of a group of reporters in the GIO press room yesterday afternoon. "I am afraid that your story is inaccurate because what you said did not happen at all during the meeting."
Lee then told Yao that he had simply cut and pasted the paragraph from the meeting records, which were available from the GIO's Web site. Yao said that he had not seen anything like that on the Web site.
When Lee logged on the Web site and tried to retrieve the offending paragraph, he discovered that the paragraph had allegedly been changed.
The weekly Cabinet meeting record that Lee had quoted was the record for Nov. 16. The GIO usually makes the weekly Cabinet meeting records public a week after the date when the meetings are held.
The premier's complaints about Yao were not reported last week because Yao did not mention anything about them during the regular press conference after last week's meeting.
"I discovered the paragraph that Yao forgot to talk about during last week's press conference, so I decided to take it from the Web site and make a story with it," Lee said.
Yao did not make any further comments about the issue.
When approached by reporters, Cho said that the atmosphere inside the meeting was nothing like Lee had described.
"I remember the premier praising Yao for his heroism instead of complaining about him showing off," he said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS