President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday began a series of intensive meetings with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, as he sought to heal the rift caused by the party’s much-criticized revocation of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) membership over allegations of illegal lobbying.
Ma and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) both appealed for “party unity,” urging lawmakers “to refrain from giving the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] an opportunity that it can take advantage of,” KMT Policy Committee chief executive Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said after a meeting.
The meeting between KMT government officials and lawmakers was held yesterday afternoon to consolidate the party’s position on various issues that will be tackled when the new legislative session starts today.
In a departure from past practice, Wang was not invited to the meeting. The KMT said this was because his party membership has been rescinded — although the Taipei District Court has granted Wang’s injunction against the party’s move to revoke his membership and invalidate his status as head of the legislature.
About 50 lawmakers — out of the total 63 — showed up for the meeting, but a number of them just signed in and left. Only 10 spoke out unbidden at the meeting.
KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) said Ma dismissed conspiracy theories that he went after Wang because of a plot seeking his ouster and rebutted criticism characterizing the incident as a political struggle between Wang and him.
Despite divisions among KMT lawmakers over the case, there was a consensus that “the KMT caucus would continue its support for President Ma” while showing their “respect for Speaker Wang,” Lin Te-fu said.
A number of KMT lawmakers close to Wang — including Wong Chung-chun (翁重鈞), Wang Hui-mei (王惠美), Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) and Lu Chia-chen (盧嘉辰), who all showed up at the airport on Tuesday last week to greet Wang on his return from an overseas trip to Malaysia where he attended his daughter’s wedding — were absent from the meeting.
Ma also began to hold small group discussions with KMT lawmakers last night, Presidential Office spokesperson Li Chia-fei (李佳霏) said.
The 63 KMT lawmakers were divided into seven groups to have dinner with Ma beginning last night to seek their views on the Wang issue, Li said.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS