Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said yesterday that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is in charge of organizing the Double Ten National Day celebrations, must accept full responsibility if he insists that the festivities go ahead.
However, Kuan told a press conference yesterday that a diplomat from the nation's sole European ally told her that he would attend the festivities to reward the efforts of those who had organized them.
"The representative also said that `If anyone wants to insult your president during the national celebrations, all they will succeed in doing is insulting the country,'" Kuan said.
The Vatican is Taiwan's only European ally.
Kuan said that she and other DPP legislators had recently met with President Chen Shui-bian (
"The president just smiled and nodded without saying anything [in response,]" Kuan said.
Kuan said that Chen had not said whether or not he would attend the celebrations, but had attempted to boost the legislators' morale.
"The president said the situation [for the party] would improve in the future," she said. "[Chen] said that when right is distinguished from wrong, all this [hardship] will pass."
Chen has been advised by the National Security Bureau not to attend outdoor festivities during this year's Double Ten National Day celebrations, including the delivery of the National Day address, the Presidential Office said on Thursday.
However, the president has not yet decided whether he will follow the advice.
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
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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