Medical advisers to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Janice Chen (
Chen was referring to Chan's remarks describing Hsieh's medical advisers as "gray-haired maids in an imperial palace."
Chan is former dean of Chi Mei Hospital and now a top aide of KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Responding to the complaint that Hsieh had included medical professionals in his advisory team without notifying the individuals concerned, Li Tzu-yao (李鎡堯), one of Hsieh's medical advisers, challenged the KMT to substantiate its claim with evidence.
Li also dismissed criticism that they had switched their political allegiance, saying that national identification was a cardinal issue of right and wrong and that they would not change their political views on a whim.
Li said that medical professionals have developed close relations with the pan-green camp over the years.
At a separate setting yesterday, DPP Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (
Cho was referring to the KMT allegedly adding names of overseas businesspeople in the name list of Ma's New York support group without seeking their consent.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) said on Monday that New York Taiwanese Businesspeople Association chairwoman Chang Ya-feng (
The KMT may have dismissed the incident as a mere mistake, but it made the fabrication sound "so natural," Cho said yesterday.
In response to Hsieh camp accusations that the Ma camp had forged the list of individuals in the medical support group and included foreign Taiwanese businessmen in its list of supporters, Ma said yesterday that his camp would look into the issue.
"I didn't know about it until I saw it in the newspaper," Ma said yesterday while campaigning for KMT legislative candidates in Taoyuan County. "We are looking into the issue and will give an explanation later."
Ma camp spokesman Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said that overseas support groups were independently formed and operated by overseas Taiwanese and that the Ma campaign office would ask the support groups to make corrections if there were mistakes in the list.
While the Ma camp said it would look into the matter, the Overseas Ma Ying-jeou-Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) support group posted an apology on its Web site (www.ma2008.org/index.php) on Monday for mistakenly including directors of local Taiwanese businesspeople groups as contractors for the support group.
Commenting on the establishment of Hsieh's medical personnel support group in Taipei on Sunday and the camp's criticism against him for including medical personnel in his support group without seeking their consent, Ma said he understood the pressure put upon some people who offered support to both camps. He did not elaborate.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry