Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday called for an end to the controversy surrounding a farmhouse owned by the wife of her presidential election running mate, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), saying the case should be dealt with from a legal point of view.
Speaking at a presidential campaign stop in Chiayi, Tsai said the public discussions of the allegedly illegally built farmhouse had been blown out of proportion and violated the privacy of those involved.
Su has promised to deal with the farmhouse according to the law and some of the criticism has been overblown, she said.
Since Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) launched a series of attacks on Su and his family over the farmhouse and other alleged acts of misconduct last month, the controversy has clouded the Tsai campaign and shifted attention away from her 11-day campaign trip up the west coast.
Some DPP members have made public comments against Su, advising him to donate or dismantle the farmhouse and even divorce his wife, Hung Heng-chu (洪恆珠), the registered owner of the farmhouse, to keep the controversy from jeopardizing the DPP’s presidential campaign.
Others, including Su’s assistant Kuo Wen-bin (郭文彬), who described the incident as a “mudslinging political attack,” support the vice-presidential candidate’s decision to handle the issue in accordance with the law.
Su said in Nantou County yesterday that he would deal with the farmhouse as the law stipulates, since he had applied for a joint inspection by the Council of Agriculture and the Pingtung County Government.
The two government entities have been drawn into the controversy, as the council has been accused by the DPP for being vague on the matter and favoring the KMT, while the Pingtung County Government has been criticized by the KMT for “covering up” Su’s “illegal” act.
Following a second inspection, the Pingtung County Government reaffirmed to the council yesterday that the farmhouse was legal.
Meanwhile, Council Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) said in a legislative session that the house’s status of legality should be within the jurisdiction of the Pingtung County Government.
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