The DPP's Taipei mayoral candidate, Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), yesterday demanded that the city's incumbent mayor, the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), state his position on whether or not he would run for the 2004 presidential election.
"Ma should make it clear to Taipei residents whether he wants to be the mayor of Taipei or the president," said Lee. "He should not use Taipei City's governance as his own political bargaining chip [for any future presidential campaign.]"
Lee made the remark yesterday when he was approached by press to comment on rumors, reported in the Chinese-language media, that the KMT hopes that Ma will be available to stand as the party's alternative presidential candidate in 2004, in the event that their preferred choice for a joint ticket -- KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
"Being a political star purposefully cultivated by the KMT for nearly 20-something years, Ma shoulders an expectation [from his party] to run for president someday."
"And it is because of such expectations that Ma has not been taking his job of governing Taipei City seriously," Lee said.
For this reason Ma must make his position clear to Taipei residents so that they don't become pawns of his bid for the presidency, Lee said.
Responding to Lee's demand for clarification, Ma yesterday stressed that he has been constant in running for the Taipei City mayoralty.
"I have no plan to run for president [in the 2004 presidential election,]" said Ma, adding that he is unaware of any plan by the KMT to let him run for president in 2004.
Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday criticized Ma's proposal to use Sung-shan Domestic Airport as a base for direct cross-strait flights, saying that such a move would seriously jeopardize Taiwan's national security.
Chen said that both Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (
"In respect for the professional advice given by the chiefs of both these two organizations, I am 100 percent against the use of Sungshan Airport as a base for cross-strait direct flights," Chen said in his capacity as the DPP's chairman at the party's Central Standing Committee yesterday.
"Besides," added Chen, "Ma should attend to issues regarding the city's governance that concerns him as a mayor, this excludes the issue of direct cross-strait flights, because that is in the hands of the central government."
In addition, Chen referred to a campaign pledge Ma made four years ago, when he proposed to have the airport moved.
"I don't understand why Ma has now changed his mind," Chen said. "Is it because now that Lee is proposing such a plan [to move the airport] is Ma just opposing it for the sake of opposition?"
Chen endorsed Lee's plan to move the Sungshan Domestic Airport to near the CKS International Airport in Taoyuan.
He said that such a move would not only free those who currently live around the Sungshan airport from noise pollution, but would also offer more convenience for passengers who wish to make connecting flights between the two airports.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching