Public confidence in politics and the economy has strengthened with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trust level reaching a new high, according to the latest poll released by the Chinese-language Global Views Monthly magazine yesterday.
The poll, conducted by the Global Views Survey Research Center, put Ma’s confidence index at 50.1 points on a scale of 0 to 100. The figure represented an increase of 4.5 points from last month. It was the highest since August last year, when Ma’s confidence index plunged to 42 in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.
The trust level of Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also rose by 2.6 points to 46.6 this month.
Center director Lian Tai (戴立安) attributed the growth to the improved performance of the Ma administration in handling the devastation caused by Typhoon Fanapi last month. The public was also more appreciative of the government’s economic reform initiatives more as it felt the economy recover, he added.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) confidence index, on the other hand, dropped below 50 at 49 points. Her party’s trust level also fell 1.2 points to 41.3. Overall, public confidence in the DPP was 45.2 — down 1.7 points.
Confidence in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which is chaired by Ma, increased 4.8 points to 46.
Meanwhile, the public mood index (TPMI) this month edged up 3.7 points but remained below 50 at 45.4.
TPMI consists of two indexes: the political confidence index (PCI) and the economic confidence index (ECI).
The PCI was 48.2 this month, while the ECI was 42.5. The figures represent an increase of 3.9 points and 3.4 points respectively over last month.
On the political front, the poll showed the index for political optimism increased 3.9 points to 49.3. The political stability index for next month was 40.5 — a hike of 6.1 points — and the level of trust in cross-strait detente next month grew 1.6 points to 58.
On the economic front, the current economic situation index was 36.4 points, a rise of 4.1 points from last month. The economic optimism index advanced 2.5 to 48.5 points.
The poll surveyed 1,007 adults across the nation from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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