Seizing on the popularity of the Olympic Games, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday called on legislative hopefuls running in the year-end elections to uphold the Olympic spirit and establish a harmonious society.
"Although our performance in sports can not compare to that of larger countries, sportsmanship does not lie in winning the championship but in participation," Chen said.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FENG, TAIPEI TIMES
"It is not a competition of life and death but harmony and development which promote human society," he added.
"The Olympic spirit, is the spirit of Taiwan, too," Chen said, adding that he hopes every candidate and political party would adhere to this spirit in the year-end legislative elections and that the elections will proceed in line with the principle of fair play.
Chen made the remarks at the 2004 National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, an annual event which he has attended since it was first launched in 2001.
At the event, Chen highlighted the challenges Taiwan currently faces.
"Aside from our players competing at the Olympic Games, there is China's incessant, unreasonable oppression of Taiwan," Chen said. "Despite this, we will not be disheartened but become more courageous in the face of international setbacks."
While stressing that the nation must also continue its democratic reforms and forge a viable framework for constitutional reform, Chen added that Taiwan "must work continuously and diligently to safeguard peace in the Taiwan Strait and promote regional security and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region."
Chen also said that economic development is the lifeline of the nation and called on local bus-inesses and workers to cooperate closely to ensure survival in the face of fierce competition from China in the global marketplace. He added that Taiwan must resist the "magnetic effect" of luring foreign investment away from Taiwan to China.
Ethnic harmony, peaceful cross-strait co-existence and diplomatic reforms were among other issues Chen touched on at the prayer breakfast yesterday.
Chen, although not a Christian, concluded his address with a verse from the Old Testament's Book of Isaiah which says "a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation."
The prayer breakfast was first introduced by Dwight Eisenhower, US president from 1953 to 1961, and has since become an annual assembly of US political luminaries. Taiwan's annual prayer breakfast was initiated by the reverend Kao Chun-ming (
According to the event organ-izer, approximately 540 prominent figures from the public and private sectors attended the breakfast yesterday. Also in attendance were diplomats and representatives from other countries.
Former legislator Lai Shyh-pao (賴士葆) of the New Party and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Jen-hiang (章仁香) were among a handful of pan-blue politicians seen at the event yesterday, but the majority of local politicians there were from pan-green parties. Opposition party leaders KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) were both invited to the event, but chose not to attend.
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