Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday called on voters in southern parts of the country, traditionally a stronghold for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), to support President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to make his re-election campaign a success.
Addressing the launch of Ma’s campaign office for the Greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas, Wang said Ma had demonstrated brilliant leadership over the past three years and two months, effectively leading the country during various difficulties at home and abroad.
He said the president steered the country through the global economic crisis from 2008 to 2009 and played an influential role in Taiwan’s signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, further cementing ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan has also scored handsomely on the diplomacy front under Ma’s leadership, including a record number of nations granting Republic of China passport holders visa-free privileges, Wang said.
Stumping for Ma in the traditionally pan-green Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas, Wang called for voters to “turn the green south blue.”
The KMT leads the pan-blue camp, which also includes the New Party and the People First Party (PFP).
Wang’s stumping for Ma was seen in part as a confidence booster for the president, with PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) reportedly ready to throw his hat into the ring for the Jan. 14 presidential election.
Soong would likely split the pan-blue vote if he enters the race, as he did in the presidential election in 2000, which saw the KMT lose power for the first time in Taiwan’s history.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400