Disagreement over the government's "UN for Taiwan" initiative was the major roadblock during yesterday's legislative review of next year's budget for the Government Information Office (GIO).
The GIO said it needed funds to promote the nation's overall image, but opposition legislators accused it of working only for the interests of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
"The GIO has no right to collect money from each Cabinet department to set up a fund to promote the nation in general. Each agency is responsible for doing their own promotion work and the GIO does not have the authority to take over that responsibility," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (
She was referring to the NT$140 million (US$4.3 million) the GIO has spent on its UN bid.
Pan-blue lawmakers have repeatedly accused the GIO over the past few weeks of "demanding" that all Cabinet-level departments foot part of the bill for the "UN for Taiwan" campaign.
GIO Minister Shieh Jey-wey (
"The GIO never asked the departments to give us a single penny for the initiative," Shieh said yesterday.
KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (
"Over the past few years, the government has spent hundreds of millions on advertisements promoting Taiwan. But the results have been very poor. Taiwan continues to be isolated from the UN and the WHO. Even the US, our best non-ally, is reluctant to pay attention to us and Taiwan-EU relations have grown cold," she said.
Other pan-blue legislators also said they would oppose the budget because they are afraid the GIO will use the money to campaign rather than utilizing it for the year's projects.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS