King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), executive director of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign office, yesterday launched a column on Ma’s Facebook page where he promised to share his views about politics and current affairs.
King, a top aide to Ma since Ma was Taipei mayor, posted a photograph with his wife and two daughters along with the column, which is titled “Public clamor that turns stones into gold [眾口鑠金].” He wrote that the column would be an attempt to communicate with voters and supporters as the Internet becomes an increasingly important campaign tool.
“I decided to give the column that title because I rarely clarify rumors and criticisms leveled against me, and over time the public slanders have become a reality for many people,” he wrote.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of Ma Ying-jeou’s election campaign office
“Starting a column in cyberspace is a new step for me and I hope I can have more interaction with the public through this platform,” he said.
No schedule has been set for King’s column.
Meanwhile, Ma opened Twitter and Plurk accounts yesterday, six-and-a-half months after he launched his Facebook site.
Campaign office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said the office would use social network sites to share Ma’s thoughts and public policies with netizens.
The launch of King’s column and two new social network accounts were the latest effort by Ma’s re-election campaign to attract support from first-time voters who, studies show, are mostly undecided.
The president has relied on younger staff members to boost his support through social networking media.
He is scheduled to meet with a group of students at a three-day camp in Greater Tainan later this month in another bid to attract young people to his campaign.
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