Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma concluded a six-day visit to Singapore and Australia at the invitation of the two countries' governments. In his capacity as Taipei mayor, Ma had private meetings with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (
Commenting on KMT member and Taipei mayoral hopeful Yeh Chin-chuan's (
"The KMT's primaries are run according to the regulations and we have strict standards that our candidates must abide by. The party followed the regulations," Ma said during a press conference at CKS International Airport yesterday.
Yeh, a former Taipei deputy mayor who was seen as Ma's chosen successor, withdrew from the primary on Tuesday after a campaign ad targeting his key rival Hau Lung-bin (
According to reports in the China Times and the United Daily News, amongst other Chinese-language media, Ma was unhappy about the criticism leveled against Yeh over the ad and speculation about his taking advantage of the city government's resources, and demanded that the party dissuade Yeh from vying for the mayoral nomination.
While Ma denied the reports and said there would be opportunities for him to cooperate with his former close aid, Yeh yesterday turned a cold shoulder to the chairman.
"I don't have the status [to see him], and there isn't much to talk about ... I think [Ma] better not contact me. It's better for him to make comments after the election," Yeh said yesterday.
Yeh denied adopting a negative campaign tactic with the ad, saying that it targeted problems of Hau's that were already in the public domain, and shared his resentment over the "super high-standards" the party had held him too.
"The ad got me a written reprimand, but [nothing happened to] another candidate who attacked me. The KMT should look into that matter instead," he said.
Earlier this month, "evidence" of Yeh committing bribery was mailed to media outlets. The material had been placed in an envelope that had the legislature's stamp on it. Yeh condemned the party for failing to get to the bottom of the matter, but said he would support the party's mayoral candidate.
Ma later declined to make any comments about Yeh's response.
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