The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential contenders are to talk about their platforms at events titled “National Policy Vision on Television” on the evening of June 25 in Kaohsiung, the afternoon of June 29 in Taichung and the evening of July 3 in Taipei, sources said yesterday.
The KMT’s National Policy Foundation is to organize the events and the format does not include a live debate, said the sources, who requested anonymity.
The KMT’s five hopefuls are Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Chinese Integration Association chairman Chang Ya-chung (張亞中) and Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), a former commissioner of what was then Taipei county.
Photo: CNA
The foundation intends the five to talk about the economy, their fiscal policies, the environment and energy at the event in Kaohsiung; youth, social, cultural and educational issues at the event in Taichung; and foreign affairs, cross-strait relations and national security at the event in Taipei, they said.
For each of the 120-minute events, one of the four topics would be selected as the main topic, with each to speak for 15 minutes, while the remaining three topics would be discussed in a question-and-answer session, they said.
Only the person whose turn it is to speak would be allowed to occupy the platform with the host, while the others are to be seated below, the sources said, adding that the order of appearance would be determined by drawing lots on the day.
The events are to be televised, they said, adding that the live audience would be limited to 200 people, with each hopeful allowed to invite no more than 30 supporters, who must remain silent and bring no signs or posters.
Separately, two KMT lawmakers expressed conditional support for Gou’s statement on Thursday calling for a clear set of rules to be established for a replacement candidate should the party need to recall the winner of its primary.
“My business, which is big, has rules and back-up plans for all of its projects that are drawn up beforehand... Replacing [then-KMT presidential candidate] Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) caused so much controversy [in 2016] because it was improvised and not done according to any rules,” Gou said.
KMT Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) said major shifts in public opinion could take place during the six months between the poll for the primary in the middle of next month and the presidential election in January next year, adding: “If all the other candidates are on board, I support Gou’s proposal.”
KMT Legislator John Wu (吳志揚) said the winner of the primary should be the one to represent the party in the election, but a contingency plan should be available if the candidate is unable to finish the race.
“As a party, we should avoid a situation where a replacement is selected on the fly,” Wu 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
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