President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) second term would start with a minor Cabinet reshuffle, with National Development Council Minister Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶), Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) leaving, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday.
Tsai and vice president-elect William Lai (賴清德) are to be inaugurated on Wednesday next week.
The three ministers have accomplished the missions they were assigned, and the reshuffle would not interrupt efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 or the government’s operations, the source said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Minister Without Portfolio Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), who is at the helm of the government’s economic stimulus policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been tapped to take over the National Development Council, they said.
Chen Liang-gee plans to return to teaching at National Taiwan University, where he used to be a chair professor, they said.
Cheng yesterday said on Facebook that she had decided to leave the Cabinet before the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections, and had tendered her resignation to Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Jan. 16 because she wanted to spend more time with her son before he starts elementary school.
However, she decided to delay her departure after the COVID-19 outbreak began to worsen, because she was worried about the effect the outbreak might have on the nation’s arts and cultural sector, Cheng wrote.
Cheng took up the culture portfolio as part of former premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) Cabinet, and she said she had been reluctant to stay on when Su asked her to join his Cabinet in January last year.
However, she is glad she did and that she had the opportunity to push for many pieces of legislation that have helped promote the nation’s culture and the establishment of the National Human Rights Museum and the Taiwan Creative Content Agency, she wrote.
She said she was also proud of helping introducing the concept of “cultural governance” to the nation’s political culture.
Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa (嚴德發) and Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) are staying on, despite recent controversies, the source said.
Hsu sparked an uproar in March when he reported National Police Agency Director-General Chen Jia-chin (陳家欽) to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office over alleged graft involving the agency’s staffing.
Su was not pleased by Hsu’s handling of the matter, but decided to keep Hsu in his because of his abilities, the source said.
Yen has come under criticism over the handling of an outbreak of COVID-19 on a ship that took part in the navy’s “Friendship Flotilla” mission to Palau.
Chen Liang-gee wrote on Facebook that he was grateful to have been given the opportunity to serve the nation for four years.
Technology is the foundation of a nation and the way to its prosperity, and he would continue dedicating himself to creating a quality and competitive research environment and incubator in the nation, he said.
Additional reporting by Lee Hsin-fang
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS