Cable TV anchorperson Chen Yi-chen (陳以真) said yesterday that she would represent the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in contesting a Chiayi County seat in January’s legislative elections, throwing a twist into a race considered to be a sure win for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Chen will campaign against DPP Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文), a former Chiayi County councilor, for the county’s second electoral district.
Chen Ming-wen said 34-year-old Chen Yi-chen’s family, like his, had a deeply rooted relationship with the county, adding that her decision to run in the election would have an impact on a relationship between their two families that has lasted for several decades.
Worried about a possible schism between the families, Chen Ming-wen said the DPP might reconsider its election strategy, without elaborating.
However, DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) rejected the incumbent’s suggestion, saying Chen Ming-wen was the “best fit” for the position.
The KMT’s new candidate is part of a family that controls the Nice Group, which has a major presence in Chiayi and is one of the nation’s most influential conglomerates, but Chen Yi-chen pledged not to rely on her family during the campaign.
Her father, Chen Jing-yao (陳鏡堯), who was convicted in 2006 on breach of trust charges in a high-profile insider trading case, is now the vice president of Nice subsidiary, AGV Products Corp, a leading food processor.
Chen Yi-chen’s announcement raised eyebrows because she publicly declined the party’s invitation early last month to contest the seat, but she changed her mind after meeting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).
Dismissing speculation that she was pressured into running to boost the president’s re-election bid in the county, she said she made the decision to run based on what she described as a passion for public issues.
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