11.25.05

Random notes

Posted in News at 6:18 pm by David

A few interesting articles in the news today:

• The Pasuya show continues: As head of the GIO, Yao is responsible for publishing the minutes of the weekly cabinet meeting. So what does he do when premier Frank Hsieh chews him out for his general incompetence in last week’s meeting? He publishes the criticisms on the GIO website, then edits the comments out, then denies it happened at all. Unfortunately, he forgot that some journalists might have actually checked the website before he changed it:
  

  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.

  I wonder if anyone’s checked Google’s cache?

• Is Lien Chan being marginalised in the KMT? One can only hope … Despite stepping down as chairman, he still wields tremendous influence inside the party. Why then wasn’t he invited to the KMTs 111th birthday party?
  

  The KMT’s organization and development committee chief Huang Chong-hsian (黃重憲) said they did not invite Lien because he had electioneering events to attend, and that the party had invited him to join a rally scheduled for Sunday. The party’s explanation, however, contradicted remarks from Lien’s staff, who said that he did not have any campaigning scheduled for yesterday.

• From the same article:
  

  Later, Ma gave a speech in which he detailed the party history, and encouraged the party to make concerted efforts to fight against the “corrupt government.”

  I would just love to know how Ma moved from talking about ‘party history’ onto ‘corrupt government’ …

• The rest of the world loves us really! A GIO-sponsored survey finds out that everyone loves Taiwan:
  

  The GIO survey found that over half of those interviewed in each country have a positive impression on Taiwan with the Japanese topping the list at 76 percent followed by 73 percent of Americans, and 68 percent of Britons.
  …
  In terms of the cross-strait issue, most people believe their own country has friendlier relationships with Taiwan than with mainland China. Despite the mainland’s promotion of the one-China policy, 60 percent of respondents understand that Taiwan and China are separate countries.

However, according to premier Hsieh they love Taiwan because they know nothing about it. Ignorance is bliss it would seem.

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