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.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS