Supporters of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday took out opposing ads in the same newspaper as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) launched a week-long public opinion poll to choose its presidential candidate.
Tsai and Lai are vying for the DPP’s nomination for the presidential election in January next year.
A group of Tsai supporters took out a half-page ad on the front page of the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) saying that she is the best candidate to represent the DPP in the election.
Photo copied from the Liberty Times
Chou Chih-hsuan (周芷萱), who launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the ad, said that it received support from 1,710 people, of whom 1,127 contributed financially.
The campaign raised NT$2.88 million (US$91,615) in 41 hours through 1,352 transactions, with donations coming from all walks of society, Chou said, adding that most of the donations were small amounts and the average age of the contributors was about 35.
Recent attacks against Tsai made it apparent that Taiwan needs gender equality education, Chou added.
Photo copied from the Liberty Times
Meanwhile, a group of Lai supporters led by National Yang Ming University professor Hung Yu-hung (洪裕宏) took out a full-page ad on an inside page of the Liberty Times.
The ad accused the DPP Central Executive Committee of changing the rules of the primary after passing regulations and accused Tsai of acting like an “empress.”
The ad said that even the Japanese media have accused Tsai of “changing the rules to benefit herself, as Lai is more popular.”
Separately yesterday, a group of Taiwanese independence supporters who are monitoring the primary at a news conference accused a “certain individual” of failing to demonstrate sportsmanship.
The person was not prepared for Saturday’s televised platform presentation, as they consistently looked down at their notes and did not speak Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) in a “campaign for Taiwan’s president,” they said, in an apparent reference to Tsai.
The group urged the DPP not to change the primary’s timetable and rules any further, and called on party members and government officials to refrain from intervening in the primary.
Former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲), who attended the news conference, said that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊) and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) should have remained neutral, given they are part of a five-member task force set up by the party to mediate between Tsai and Lai.
They should quit their posts for publicly supporting Tsai, he added.
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
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
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