The DPP will hold a seminar Jan. 11 and Jan. 12 to discuss six major topics, including national security, economic development and administrative reform, senior party officials said yesterday.
"The two-day seminar is aimed at soliciting opinions of party members on the government's agenda and at forging intraparty consensus on major policy issues," DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said at a press conference.
The seminar will focus mainly on finance and economics, national security, political reform, social welfare and public health, and public construction, as well as educational, cultural and technological development, Chang said.
He added that President Chen Shui-bian (
The meeting will also be attended by heads and deputy heads of various ministries, as well as DPP legislators, city mayors and county magistrates, members of the DPP's Central Standing Committee and Central Executive Committee, and the chairmen of various DPP local chapters.
Chang said the seminar is expected to help consolidate the communication and coordination mechanism among the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the DPP's legislative caucus and party headquarters.
Saying that the public has high expectations for the DPP administration, Chang said the seminar will mark the beginning of the party's efforts to further refine its decision-making process and coordinate with the government.
"We hope the seminar can help DPP lawmakers better understand the Cabinet's major policy goals and support the Cabinet's programs to realize these goals," he said.
Asked whether the seminar is related to the party's campaign program for the 2004 presidential election, Chang did not make a direct reply, saying only that the DPP's priorities are reform and the economy at the moment, not the presidential election.
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (
If the party and the administration do not improve the existing formula, in which the party chairman "decides everything," he said, a "collective crisis" might arise in the party.
Regarding the efforts to conduct reform and revitalize the economy, Lee said that the government should communicate with legislators of the ruling party so as to expedite the deliberation of related bills in the legislature.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400