The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) election prospects in Greater Taichung area appear to have taken a turn for the better recently, after a poll suggested that its candidate was rapidly gaining on Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強).MOMENTUM
Hoping to continue the momentum, the opposition party plans to send one of its top election strategists, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), to shore up support in the area, as well as hold its annual party celebrations in the city next Tuesday.
A meeting by senior party officials in Taipei City yesterday confirmed that the DPP candidate, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), previously considered a long-shot in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) stronghold, was quickly gaining on his opponent and had a chance of winning the Nov. 27 poll.
Hu, under pressure following high-profile crimes in the city and falling public support, yesterday acknowledged that the results of a recent survey by the Chinese-language China Times were a warning signal but said that they would “only make me work harder.”
The poll, released on Saturday, showed that Hu’s lead had shorted to just 6 percent, with 41 percent support against 35 percent for Su. Previous surveys had consistently shown a double-digit lead.
LAW AND ORDER
In an effort to shore up his law and order image, Hu announced yesterday that contrary to public opinion, crime statistics for the first eight months of this year were at a 15-year low.
He called the figures, compiled by the Taichung City Government, one of his major accomplishments.
Su, a former minister of the interior and Pingtung County commissioner, has been highlighting his law and order background, saying that he successfully turned Pingtung, a former haven for criminals, into a successful county based on fishing.
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