President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) comments on Wednesday about the number of suicides this year sparked a war of words between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday.
During an evening symposium with residents of Greater Taichung’s Dongshih District (東勢), Ma said that with the decline of natural disasters and man-made errors, the decline in the number of suicides between January and September of this year — 700 less than the same period last year — “surprised me very much.”
DPP caucus whips Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) and Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) accused Ma at press conference of being cold-blooded and heartless, using the public’s pain as a political achievement.
In an attempt to draw a comparison, they said if Ma could be credited for the lack of typhoons this year, how would he explain the casualties and destruction wrought by Typhoon Morakot in 2009?
Noting that a national suicide prevention center was established on Dec. 9, 2005, under the former DPP administration, Tsai and Wong said that while there had been an increase in the number of calls to the center every year since its establishment, the number of suicides has been gradually dropping year by year.
“President Ma, please stop rubbing salt into people’s wounds by talking about natural disasters or suicides,” they said.
However, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said that the declining number of suicides was the resultof the appropriate and quick response of the government, such as the high standards asked of social workers, and hence the reduction was commendable.
Additional reporting by Chang Jui-chen
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the
RSS