Scheduled talks between the Min-istry of Finance and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the party's disputed assets never got off the ground yesterday morning after the two sides spent two hours arguing over what to call the meeting and other logistical matters before ending the session.
The ministry, headed by Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
The KMT, represented by its team of lawyers headed by Y.R. Lee (
The ministry wanted the two sides to review basic principles concerning the disposition of the KMT's overall disputed assets before proceeding to details; the KMT stood firm on its position that the meeting should focus on the nine properties the party announced last month it would relinquish to the original owners.
Those properties are seven movie theaters, the Shih Chien building (
"It is regrettable that no concrete conclusion of any sort was reached during the meeting," Lin said at a ministry press conference shortly after the meeting.
"It seems that the return of the seven theaters and the two buildings is unlikely -- as is meeting Premier Yu Shyi-kun's expectations," Lin said, referring to the Cabinet's hope of reclaiming the properties by the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22.
Lin Chua, head of the Cabinet's five-person task force formed to address issues regarding the inappropriate acquisition of the KMT's assets during the party's 50-year rule, expressed hope that both parties would meet again before the New Year holiday.
The KMT expressed its willingness to meet again but there was no consensus on the date of another meeting.
The KMT held its own press conference at its headquarters yesterday afternoon.
Expressing regrets that no conclusion was reached during the morning meeting, Lin Yung-jui (林永瑞), deputy directory of the party's Administration and Management Committee, said "the Ministry of the Finance ought to shoulder the responsibility for the fruitless result of the talks."
"Since both parties could not reach consensus over the principles mentioned by the Ministry of Finance, we don't understand why Lin Chuan can't sidestep those thorny issues and focus on the seven theaters and the two buildings which [the KMT] has announced its willingness to relinquish" Lin Yung-jui said.
Saying that 80 percent of the party's 165 properties have been returned to their original owners, Lin Yung-jui said that yesterday's fruitless negotiating session would not alter the KMT's attitude toward the disposition of the remaining 20 percent.
KMT spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元) questioned the ministry's sincerity in dealing with the asset issues.
"The Ministry of Finance does not appear to attach importance to the substantial issues we had proposed," Tsai said.
"It seems reasonable for us to speculate that the Ministry of Finance wishes to drag out the issue, to make it into a propaganda tool in the run-up to the [presidential] election," Tsai said.
Noting that the disposition of the party assets involves complicated legal procedures, Tsai called on the ministry to entrust the negotiations to the hands of legal professionals, not government ministers and other officials.
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