President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that he is willing to shoulder all responsibility and engage in self-reflection for his administration’s contentious policies as he appealed to voters to “consider the bigger picture” and vote Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) into office.
On the eve of the presidential and legislative elections, Ma uploaded a two-minute video to Facebook yesterday morning in a last-ditch effort to campaign for Chu, his successor as KMT chairman.
“For the past eight years, I have had my heart set on building a just and prosperous Taiwan, furthering cross-strait peace and creating a friendly international environment for the nation. I have given these tasks my full devotion and tried my utmost each and every single day,” Ma said in the video.
Ma said he is confident that his policies are on the right track, even though the timing and manner in which some of them were implemented lacked thorough consideration.
Ma’s remarks came as Chu is widely predicted to be defeated in today’s elections, given his lackluster support ratings, which are believed to have been dragged down by Ma’s unpopularity.
Some political analysts have estimated that Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) could beat Chu by as many as 3 million votes.
Ma said he believes that if Chu is elected president, he will continue the direction of his “correct policies,” while learning from Ma’s mistakes in areas in which he could have done better.
“Chu will bring a brighter future to Taiwan and its future generations,” Ma said.
Today’s presidential and legislative elections are held at a critical time for the KMT, so supporters are urged to look at the bigger picture and unite in support of the party, Ma said.
Ma, whose second presidential term is set to expire on May 20, said the KMT has been perceived as the cornerstone of the nation’s stability, adding that only by allowing the party to remain in power would that hard-earned stability and cross-strait peace be maintained.
“Please come out and vote tomorrow [today],” Ma said.
“You will be voting for the nation’s future and social stability, as well as the long-term development of the Republic of China,” he said.
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