Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (
The 81 KMT legislators will meet the chairman on Thursday, April 7 and April 8 to discuss how they should carry out their immediate duties, including seeking legislative reform through sunshine bills.
Wu and the legislators will also talk about amending the party's internal regulations, Lin said.
BILLS
Lin said that the caucus would initiate proposals at several legislative committees this week to prioritize 16 bills that are "less controversial" for committee review.
The caucus' move came after Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
METHADONE
The 16 bills, which include an amendment to the Narcotics Endangerment Prevention Act (毒品危害防治條例) proposed by Hsieh to offer methadone maintenance treatment as a way to reduce drug dependence, will likely be put to a second reading if the committees complete their preliminary review by the plenary session on Friday.
Lin said that the caucus would be willing to push the bills through a third reading as soon as possible.
The legislature is scheduled to begin reviews of bills during the weekly plenary session after the legislative interpellation of the premier ends tomorrow.
PRESSURE
Meanwhile, president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (
The KMT, which now dominates both branches of the government, should shoulder full responsibility for the administration, he said.
Democracy means that the majority rules, but the voice of the minority should be respected while differences of opinion should be allowed to exist, he said.
He called for an end to the political wrangling between the pan-green and the pan-blue camps and said the war of words that characterized the presidential election was a thing of the past.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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