President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said last night that former defense minister Chiang Chung-ling (蔣仲苓) and former director of the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (退輔會) Hsu Li-lung (許歷農) were the ones behind his recent comments about a "soft coup d'etat."
Chen made the revelation during a campaign rally in Hsinchu County, one week after he first revealed that the opposition pan-blue camp had attempted to launch a "soft coup d'etat" in the wake of the March presidential election.
Cabinet officials such as Government Information Office (GIO) Director-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Council for Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman Chang Ching-sen (張景森) also made speeches to back up the DPP's administration during the rally.
Lin yesterday targeted Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for Ma's remarks attacking Chen over traffic regulations.
Lin said Ma only wanted to hide his incompetence in handling municipal affairs and highlight himself as the pan-blue camp's would-be leader.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who also participated in the Hsinchu City rally, stressed the importance of legislative reform and strongly backed legislative caucus leader Kerr Chien-ming (柯建銘), who is campaigning in Hsinchu City.
Earlier in the morning, the DPP was busy responding to the news that Taitung County Commissioner Hsu Ching-yuan (徐慶元), who yesterday announced that he would withdraw from the People First Party and promised that he would appear onstage with Chen at a rally for DPP candidate Hsu Jui-kui (許瑞貴) in Taitung County.
DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday said that he called Hsu Chin-yuan and expressed his appreciation to him for supporting the DPP.
Chang said that he and Hsu Ching-yuan had a good conversation, adding that he will go to Taitung County to discuss campaign details with him.
"The DPP has the same view as Commissioner Hsu: that there should be balanced development in eastern Taiwan as well as western Taiwan," Chang said.
"As long as the policies and budget that the local government has are beneficial to local people, the DPP government is willing to give its support, regardless of whether the local chiefs are of the pan-green or pan-blue camp," Chang said.
"We respect Commissioner Hsu's political decision to become a public figure without party affiliation," Chang said.
"But I believe the commissioner's example shows that there is no problem for the central and local governments to cooperate with each other closely, as long as local development is the first concern."
"We never talked about Hsu's future, and it is impossible that we offered any incentives, as the pan-blue camp accused," Chang said, asking the pan-blues to stop attacking Hsu.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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