Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
"The KMT will make public its position and policy on the arms procurement budget to prove that we are a responsible opposition party," he said yesterday morning at KMT headquarters, adding that Wang was "happy to see the KMT make such progress."
Ma said the party will discuss the details with the legislative caucus and reach a consensus before announcing the KMT's position on the matter next month or in March.
"There is room for discussion on the arms procurement budget, but issues like the country's financial situation are things we need to be concerned about," he said later yesterday during a tea gathering with the press.
"The government should also seek consensus and make peace with the opposition parties, instead of creating more tension and making things more difficult," he added.
Ma said the party's legislative caucus will announce a "reasonable arms procurement" policy, and will be willing to discuss related issues with the defense ministry.
In this regard, PFP caucus whip Hwang Yih-jiau (
"These two issues concern the entire country. As a result, we cannot be too careful on this and we need more discussions," Hwang said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union caucus whip Mark Ho (
"The pan-blue camp has been so lazy, and we cannot go on like this," Ho said. "Many pan-blue lawmakers were former military personnel and they understand the importance of the procurement. It cannot be constantly postponed like this."
Meanwhile, KMT Secretary-General Chan Chuen-pao (詹春柏) and the PFP's Chin Chin-sheng (秦金生) on Wednesday discussed the division of city councilor seats ahead of the upcoming Taipei and Kaohsiung city councilor elections. Ma said that the two parties agreed at the meeting that they will jointly control the number of nominees, run joint campaigns and divide the total votes received by either party.
The actual number of seats allotted to each party will be decided based on the votes it attracted in previous city councilor elections, according to KMT Liao Feng-teh (廖風德), head of the KMT's Organization and Development Committee.
While Ma insisted that the consensus on the city councilor election demonstrated better relations between the two parties, the KMT-PFP relationship has suffered from great tensions, with more PFP members defecting to the KMT in order to win the KMT's nomination in the year-end elections.
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai