The Executive Yuan announced yesterday that former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) will serve as the new Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister, while former professional basketball star Rosa Chien (錢薇娟) will serve as the deputy minister for the Sports Affairs Council.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) called the new Cabinet as a “dumping ground for defeated lawmakers,” saying that Chien ran unsuccessfully in last month’s legislative elections as a KMT candidate, while Chang didn’t even secure the KMT’s nomination in the first place.
“This goes to show President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) arrogance — he ignores professionalism and treats government appointments as political rewards,” Pan said.
The DPP lawmaker cited other examples, such as the appointments of Chen Yi-chen (陳以真), who ran unsuccessfully as a KMT legislative candidate in Chiayi County, to head the National Youth Commission and Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who lost his re-election bid last month, to the post of the Executive Yuan secretary-general.
Other deputy minister appointments announced by the Executive Yuan included Hsu Jen-hui (徐仁輝) for the Ministry of Finance; Yeh Shin-cheng (葉欣誠) for the Environmental Protection Administration; Chou Yuan-ching (周源卿), Atomic Energy Council; Hochen Hong (賀陳弘), National Science Council; Wu Kuo-an (吳國安), Public Construction Commission; and Lee Chao-ming (李朝明) for the Council for Hakka Affairs.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash