President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) canceled all public events yesterday to prepare for the debate on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) tomorrow.
Ma has been spending several hours each day discussing issues related to the debate with his aides in preparation for the debate, and tomorrow will stress the importance and necessity of signing an ECFA with China, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said.
Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) has organized a team of academics, industry representatives and officials to help Ma prepare for the debate.
Lo and former Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) are responsible for drafting questions and answers to simulate the debate.
Lo yesterday said Ma had been promoting the government’s plan to sign an ECFA with China for more than a year, and he would present a comprehensive case on the importance of an ECFA from the perspective of international and cross-strait economic development.
Ma will not avoid discussing the negative impacts of an ECFA during the debate, Lo said, and will address the challenges Taiwan will face after signing the economic pact.
The Presidential Office had originally wanted the two to have a “dialogue,” but later agreed to debate issues related to an ECFA after the DPP insisted on holding a debate on the controversial cross-strait pact.
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