Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday confirmed that he would run for a spot on the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee.
The move could give the one-time presidential candidate, who had vowed to back out of politics following his loss in the 2008 presidential election, more sway over an increasingly confident DPP heading into November’s special municipality elections.
Last month, a three day sit-in supporting a referendum on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China planned by Hsieh, who currently heads the non-profit Taiwan Shadow Government, attracted the support of thousands.
Nominations for the DPP’s three committees — the Central Executive Committee, Central Standing Committee and Central Evaluation Committee — opened yesterday and will close on Friday.
On July 18, a full meeting of the DPP’s National Convention will elect 30 members for the executive committee and 11 members for the evaluation committee. Executive committee members will then conduct an internal vote and elect 10 standing committee members, which have the authority to decide on party policies and initiatives.
Both former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) are two other potential contenders for a spot on the decision-making body.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said the standing committee would likely play an important part in the year-end elections, where the DPP is aiming to win at least three of the five mayoral seats.
Sources close to Lu did not confirm whether she would stand, despite an article in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday that claimed the former vice president had already made her decision to run.
Yu, who is currently traveling in the US after his failed bid to be the DPP’s mayoral candidate in Sinbei City, could not be reached for comment.
In related news, DPP spokesperson Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said yesterday the party’s platform for the year-end elections would focus on local issues, instead of being defined by its views on an ECFA.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who is running for re-election, said on Sunday that his DPP counterpart, former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), owed Taipei residents an explanation on his attitude toward the ECFA, which the government wants to sign later this month.
Responding to his comments, Tsai Chi-chang accused Hau of “political pandering” and said he should instead be fighting an election battle based on his achievements as Taipei mayor over the past four years.
While the DPP would not rule out talking about the ECFA, it chose to fight the elections based on providing a “happy lifestyle,” the spokesperson added.
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