President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, spent yesterday campaigning for KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), seeking to keep the city under the party’s control amid a tight battle.
Ma spent the whole morning campaigning for Hau, accompanying him to meet with local voters in Huannan Market, Baoan Temple, Dihua Street and the Xiahai City God Temple.
“We are calling for Taipei residents to support Mayor Hau’s re-election bid. Mayor Hau continued municipal projects that I left behind for him, and he is doing a better job than me,” Ma said after visiting Huan-nan Market.
Later, while attending an event celebrating the KMT’s 116th anniversary at his campaign headquarters, Hau said that he faces a tough battle, but only through electing him and other KMT candidates in Saturday’s election can the nation’s economy continue to grow.
“The nation’s economic growth rate reached 9.98 percent this year and the KMT must win the elections to continue this great achievement,” he said.
Former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), who also attended the event to campaign for Hau, acknowledged there is a deadlock situation in the Taipei mayoral race and he urged party members to take the elections more seriously because of the implications for the KMT’s future.
“The municipality elections will create a domino effect and if we do poorly in the elections, it’ll be very difficult for us to boost the party’s momentum in the presidential election,” Wu said.
Throughout the campaign, Hau has been threatened by his Democratic Progressive Party mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who is popular among pan-green supporters and has successfully attracted younger voters with fresh campaign strategies.
Over concern about the -Taipei mayoral race, the KMT has stepped up its efforts to campaign for Hau. In addition to holding a large-scale march today to boost Hau’s support, the KMT has also scheduled Ma to stump for Hau every day leading up to the election on Saturday.
Su yesterday shrugged off the KMT chairman’s heavy campaigning for Hau and said voters in Taipei will choose a capable candidate regardless of political affiliations.
“Mayor Hau has the support of the president and I have the support of the Taipei residents,” Su said.
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