The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is mulling whether to pull out of a scheduled debate between party Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Sunday amid intensified controversy over allegations of influence peddling.
“We are still evaluating the situation before making a final decision,” DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said yesterday.
The debate, to be televised by the Public Television Service, will be about the cross-strait service trade pact signed in June.
There has been widespread public concern about the negative impact caused by a potential influx of Chinese investment and workers.
Several DPP members raised concerns about the necessity of the debate since Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), former minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) were accused of involvement in influence peddling by the Special Investigation Division on Friday. The allegations have created a political storm within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Hung Chih-kune (洪智坤), a member of the DPP’s Central Executive Committee, said the party should withdraw from the debate because Ma’s abuse of the state apparatus, in particular the judiciary, as a political tool and his ignorance of the nation’s democratic system have made the debate unnecessary.
The DPP should launch a non-cooperative movement by withdrawing from the debate, shutting down communication channels between the two parties, suspending administrative measures authorized by the central government in DPP-governed counties and cities, as well as beginning to work with civic groups on a civil disobedience movement, Huang said.
However, DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said the party should seize the opportunity to question Ma on the constitutional crisis that he has created and on democratic principles.
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