Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) urged newly sworn-in lawmakers yesterday to observe legislative regulations and control spending on the refurbishment of their offices at the Legislative Yuan.
He urged them to strive to keep their expenses below NT$100,000.
Wang said that if some legislators cannot keep their spending under NT$100,000, they would have to pay for the excess themselves.
frugal
Wang's comments came in the aftermath of remarks made by Lin Yi-shih, (林益世) director of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Central Policy Committee, on Sunday calling for newly-sworn in KMT legislators to be frugal when it comes to spending on refurbishment of their research offices.
Lin called for KMT legislators to avoid extravagance and strive to build a "new image" for the Legislative Yuan, in which the KMT now holds an absolute majority after winning a landslide victory in the Jan. 12 legislative polls, taking 81 seats in the restructured 113-member legislature.
`pigeon holes'
Meanwhile, Wang said that although legislators' office space had doubled as the number of legislators had been almost halved, their offices were still cramped resembling "pigeon holes."
He added that work days at the seventh legislature would be much tougher than was previously the case.
Wang said that although each new legislator was now able to hire two more aides, their work loads, in terms of serving constituents, will be considerably heavier than before because constituencies were much bigger.
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