Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
If everything goes well, the extra session will begin on Aug. 11 with Premier Yu Shyi-kun reporting on and being interpellated about the special budget for relief measures addressing the damage done by Tropical Storm Mindulle as well as the 10 New Major Construction Projects.
While it is generally believed that the extra session will in fact be held, and the budget for the relief action will be passed, different caucuses have different agendas, with the Constitutional amendment bill being the major focus of disagreement.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucuses are both insisting on passing the Constitutional amendment bill on legislative downsizing and reform, but the People First Party (PFP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union caucuses (TSU) both object to passing it in the extra session.
Two other bills that may be contentious are the statute for the investigation committee into the March 19 assassination attempt and the establishment of a committee to review documents on the initiation of the national security mechanism on March 19.
The pan-blue caucuses want to push the two bills through, while the pan-green caucuses may not be as enthusiastic.
Besides these major political bills, both the DPP and the KMT caucuses also favor passing other bills.
The DPP caucus has proposed 16 bills including the special budget for the 10 New Major Construction Projects and an amendment to the Resolution Trust Committee Fund Regulatory Provisions (
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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