Amid finger-pointing between the ruling and opposition parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday apologized to the public for the kerfuffle at the CKS International Airport on Tuesday, saying it had seriously damaged the nation's image.
"We, as a responsible ruling party, feel sorry about what happened and condemn any form of violence," DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said. "We are in favor of meting out punishment to those held responsible in accordance with the law and urge agencies concerned to conduct a swift and thorough examination of the matter to prevent any similar occurrence from happening again."
Lai said it is not fair or correct to blame the violence on a single party or individual.
"Until the truth comes out, we hope opposition parties refrain from politicizing the matter and damaging the political climate, which is gradually turning congenial," he said.
Flanked by his colleagues who went to the airport to "see off" Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
"We strongly suspect they were gangsters," DPP Legislator Chen Chin-jun (
In addition to asking government officials to bring suspected gangsters involved in the tussle to justice, Wang condemned New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (
"Such venomous comments should have been uttered by such Taiwanese people as I, who was a victim of the infamous `228 incident' by the former foreign regime of KMT," Wang said.
"If I, as a Taiwanese, cannot stage a protest against Lien's attempt to fawn over China, I'd rather die," he said.
As Lien is due back next Tuesday, Wang said he will take two eggs to the airport to welcome him back, but that he will go alone.
DPP Legislator Pan Meng-an (
Huang Chung-yung (黃宗源), of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), said that both the pan-blue and pan-green camps should be held responsible and he would like to apologize to the public on his party's behalf.
He, however, charged that the pan-blue alliance had colluded with gangsters to beat up innocent people, including seniors. He also criticized the police force for doing a poor job in maintaining order.
Echoing Huang's opinion, TSU caucus whip Liao Pen-yen (
"We had warned the police to be aware of the infiltration of gangsters, but they turned a deaf ear to our warnings," he said.
In addition to asking Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (
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