Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Former president Chen Shui-bian is escorted in a wheelchair to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Linkou branch in New Taipei City yesterday morning.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times

The two tumors that had been detected in former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) seminal vesicle earlier this year are nonmalignant blood clots, doctors said yesterday after Chen underwent a follow-up medical checkup, adding that they were trying to determine why a third clot had formed.

Chen was granted temporary release from prison so he could get a medical checkup at Chang Gung Hospital’s branch in Linkou District (林口), New Taipei City (新北市), yesterday morning. He was transported from Taipei Prison to the hospital at about 6am.

Academia Sinica researcher David Huang, Taiwan Brain Trust president Wu Rong-i, Taiwan Association of University Professors president Chang Yen-hsien and People First Party Deputy Secretary-General Liu Wen-hsiung, left to right, speak at a forum about President Ma Ying-jeou’s inauguration speech in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inaugural speech on Sunday was vague, conflicting and cliched, addressing neither what should be done to solve domestic economic woes nor uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty, political analysts told a forum yesterday.

The president did not address what he would do to rejuvenate Taiwan’s economy, nor did he apologize for a series of ill-advised policies, such as fuel and electricity price increases and the controversy over imports of meat containing the feed-additive ractopamine, said Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), president of the Taiwan Brain Trust think tank, which organized the forum.