Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers were divided yesterday over a statement from a group of young party members who said they rejected President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) leadership in politics even though he remains their president constitutionally.
Jou Yi-cheng (周奕成), former director of the party's Information and Culture Department and Denzel Ku (顧家銘), former deputy chief of the party's department of youth development, are among the leaders of the group.
The group have organized a three-day forum, which began on Wednesday. Jou said the forum was aimed at finding a direction for the party's development.
"We have entered a `Post-Bian era,' a new generation that does not need President Chen's leadership. We have set out to map a set of guiding principles for the party for the next 10 years and we don't need instruction from President Chen," the statement said.
DPP Legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) told a press conference that the young people had damaged the party and he urged the party to discipline them.
"At a time when the party and the president are under severe attack, we don't see young people coming forward to defend them. Instead, they stood right on the party's wound to make themselves stand out, which is abominable," Wang said.
"I suggest they quit the party, given that they chose to speak to the media instead of making their suggestions internally," he said.
DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), however, applauded the group, saying their action was the best birthday present the party could receive.
"Their action proved that there are still some people seriously thinking about what has gone wrong with the party and how to reform the party. They didn't just give up on the party," Lee said.
During yesterday's forum, Jou accused Chen of manipulating the independence-unification issue. He said this would damage the nation's interests and not help in realizing Taiwanese independence.
Jou cited several examples of things that President Chen had done which had been "harmful" to the country.
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
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
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