Independent Legislator Li Ao (
With the meeting between President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Soong looming, Li said yesterday that Soong's change of heart on the arms procurement project is bound to lead to divisions between Soong and his friends, including himself.
"When the Democratic Action Alliance (DAA,
"If he changes his mind simply because he wants to meet with Chen or for whatever political reason, I'll get very angry," Li said.
As an opposition party, Li said that the PFP's mission is to criticize and oppose the government.
"It doesn't make sense to reconcile with the government, because it's the opposition parties' job to question and oppose the government," he said.
"It's not the opposition parties's job to wipe the govern-ment's ass when it screws up," Li said.
Commenting on Li's remarks, DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (
He also called on Soong to jointly push for partisan reconciliation with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and not to be threatened by "extremists' preposterous remarks."
"Those who distribute groundless accusations are worse than politicians who place their personal gain above the public interest," he said.
In addition to thanking Li for his advice, PFP legislative whip Liu Wen-hsiung (
"I'd like to guarantee, on my own life, that we are opposed to the NT$610.8 billion arms budget and will continue to oppose it in the future, even after the Chen-Soong meeting," he said.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS