The tables turned on the Ministry of Education yesterday when a group of National Taiwan University (NTU) alumni demanded the ministry either move out of its current office building, which they claim belongs to the school, or cough up NT$2 billion (US$61 million) in rent for occupying the building for the last 36 years.
The ministry responded that the property belongs to the government and therefore the school has no say in how the property should be used.
"The ministry said it is going after the Chinese Nationalist Party's [KMT] illegal assets out of a sense of justice. But it is an irony that the ministry has refused to return the building that is rightfully ours," said Song Shun-lian (
The 7,776m2 building next to the National Taiwan University Hospital and the Legislative Yuan building on Zhongshan S Road, was erected 36 years ago by the university's School of Pharmacy in the College of Medicine.
In 1971, Sun Yun-shou (
The alumni association said that the ministry was supposed to return the building nine years ago.
The ministry reportedly not only refused to honor the deal in July, but demanded unlimited use of the building, claiming that the government has sole control over any public buildings.
Liu Yi-chuan (
Another possible solution was for the ministry to find a new location.
Liu said the ministry was simply following the counsel of the government that ownership and management rights over any publicly owned building must belong to the same entity.
"It does not make sense to have NTU own the building while we manage it," he said.
"It would be in contradiction to the government's recommendations," Liu said.
Song said the alumni ssociation understood there was only a slim possibility that the ministry would back down from a fight.
"We just hope the ministry will stop ignoring the association's invitation to hold an open debate on issue," she said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
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