Frustrated by the stalemate in the legislature, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
"The KMT caucus has to take full responsibility because it has shut the door of negotiation and keeps boycotting bills proposed by the Executive Yuan and the pan-green alliance at the legislature's procedure committee," said DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te (
The pan-blue dominated committee yesterday voted 18 to 12 in favor of shelving 17 bills proposed by the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucuses. The bills include the arms procurement plan, confirmation of President Chen Shui-bian's (
While Lien is willing to reconcile with the Chinese Communist Party, he has ordered his party to adopt a "scorched earth" policy to plunge the legislature into a standoff, Lai said.
"We hope the first thing Lien does when he comes home is to help solve the legislative problem," Lai said. "I think it would be more meaningful to help solve domestic problems than to bring back pandas from China."
Despite the opposition voiced by some DPP lawmakers to Lien's return, another DPP caucus whip, Jao Yung-ching (
Lai said that he hopes the legislature passes as many bills and budget plans as possible before the current session ends on May 31 instead of extending the session or even calling a provisional session.
Lai made the remarks in response to a proposal made by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who has indicated that he is under much pressure from the US government to handle the arms procurement plan. Wang has proposed to hold an interim session in July or August to tackle the matter if the legislature fails to pass the arms budget in the current session.
The People First Party (PFP) caucus also voiced opposition to Wang's proposal, saying that it prefers to settle the matter via cross-party negotiations, hopefully by the end of the month.
PFP caucus whip Lee Yong-ping (
The PFP's Chin Hui-chu (
PFP Legislator Wu Ching-chih (
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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