A prominent People First Party (PFP) legislator said yesterday that the party will support legislation proposed by the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to probe the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) assets, but will not take the initiative to vie for the position of Legislative Yuan vice speaker or cooperate with the DPP in the race.
Liu Wen-hsiung (
Liu said the KMT assets have always been the target of attack by the DPP during elections, and some people have even accused the PFP of eyeing a share of the assets by planning a merger with the KMT.
The PFP believes the passage of the bill will help clarify the controversies surrounding KMT assets and facilitate the merger of the KMT and PFP, Liu said.
Liu pointed out that although the PFP will clear the way for the bill to enter legislative proceedings, it is against any discriminatory articles in the bill that are designed to liquidate a certain party.
The DPP is expected to submit the bill next week to the Legislative Yuan's procedures committee, which is in charge of scheduling the legislature's agenda. It is unlikely that the bill will be included on the agenda if it doesn't have the support of the PFP.
According to the bill, the assets owned by a political party and its affiliated organizations are to be returned to the government with the exception of membership fees, political donations and campaign funding from the government.
The bill also applies to assets that were sold after May 1, 1991, with parties having to return a payment equivalent to the value of the assets sold.
Also, any transactions taking place after March 10 this year will be declared invalid, according to the bill.
Meanwhile, Liu said the caucus will not express its opinion on any candidates for the speaker or vice speaker posts before it meets to seek a consensus among its members.
Liu denied reports that the DPP has sought to cooperate with the PFP in the race for the vice speaker post, saying the PFP has made it clear that it will not join forces with the DPP on this matter.
Liu also said the PFP will not take any proactive steps to jockey for any Cabinet positions or the posts of speaker or vice speaker of the Legislative Yuan.
A minority of PFP legislators have proposed that the party make a bid for the vice speaker post while supporting the KMT's bid for the post of speaker.
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
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not