The legislature will quickly pass a package of anti-corruption or “sunshine” bills designed to ensure clean politics when its new session begins this week, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said yesterday.
Wang said he believed the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) planned to push the bills when the legislative session opens on Friday.
“As long as the KMT proposes the draft bills, the legislature will follow the legislative procedures in reviewing the bills,” Wang said.
“It would not take long to complete the legislation of the bills,” he said.
Critics have blasted the KMT-dominated legislature for failing to pass the sunshine bills in previous sessions.
Wang made the remarks earlier yesterday at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport prior to his departure for Japan, where he will give a speech at a symposium on relations between the US, Japan and Taiwan at the invitation of the Okazaki Institute in Tokyo.
During his trip, Wang will meet former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Wang is returning to Taiwan today to prepare for the coming legislative session.
Wang visited Japan early last month as part of the government’s efforts to cement ties with Japan simultaneously with its recent moves to improve relations with China.
During the visit last month, Wang met Japanese lawmaker Taro Aso, a former foreign minister who is widely expected to win the race to become Japanese prime minister next Monday.
Wang will not meet Aso during this trip as Aso is busy with the election, senior legislative sources said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
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The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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