Cabinet officials should observe certain principles when they canvass votes or stump for candidates during the upcoming legislative by-elections, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday.
Wu said that while he did not oppose ministerial-level officials canvassing votes for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates running in the by-elections for four legislative seats on Feb. 27, vote-soliciting initiatives should not be in violation of party or government regulations.
He said canvassing must be carried out under the principle that a minister will not compromise his or her position during the activity, that no national resources or budgets be used for particular candidates and that officials must be make careful use of their language.
The premier also said that justice and education ministers, as well as the director-general of the National Police Agency, were unsuitable for appearances at such functions.
While civil servants have the right to express verbal support for candidates when they are off-duty, such stumping must not be “too much,” Wu said.
The KMT has fielded Apollo Chen (陳學聖), Cheng Yung-tang (鄭永堂), Lin Te-jui (林德瑞) and Wang Ting-sheng (王廷升) as candidates in the Feb. 27 legislative by-elections for Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Chiayi and Hualien counties respectively.
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
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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