Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
While the legislative speaker is not authorized by any of the legislature's internal rules to exercise such a power, Wang said that it is the responsibility of all lawmakers to help maintain order on the legislative floor.
"I will call a cross-party meeting to seek opinions from all caucus leaders on whether to give the legislative speaker the right to call in security officers at the right time and if the situation needs it, if they file a formal request," Wang said. "Once a consensus is made, all lawmakers will have to bear the consequences instead of leaving the legislative speaker to solely take the blame."
Wang made the remarks yesterday in response to criticism lodged by the People First Party (PFP) caucus earlier yesterday morning.
PFP caucus whip Hwang Yih-jiau (
Tuesday's legislative sitting was marked by fisticuffs and shouting matches. Reluctant to call in legislative security officers to settle the mayhem, Wang ordered a recess and let the pan-blue and pan-green camps continue to air their grievances.
Wang later said that his decision was based on the belief that calling in security was the last resort and might worsen the situation. He, however, condemned the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for seizing the wrecking the speaker's desk and microphone before adjourning the fruitless meeting.
DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus has pledged to file a motion during tomorrow's plenary session to send DPP lawmakers who sequestered the speaker's desk to the legislature's Discipline Committee for punishment.
Hwang yesterday said that the use of security forces is not aimed at beating up lawmakers but at driving out violent inciters, and safeguarding the dignity of both the legislature and the legislative speaker.
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