Two female legislators became embroiled in a confrontation during a meeting of the Education and Culture Committee yesterday during a preliminary review of the National Science Council’s budget request.
Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers held up signs that read “Full control of the government means full authoritarianism” when the meeting began in a bid to boycott the committee’s review of the budget proposal.
The three legislators want to submit a proposal to cut the council’s budget but need another legislator to endorse their request in order to put it on the agenda.
The DPP only has three seats in the committee, however, so their initiative has been put aside.
The council is requesting NT$35.9 billion (US$1.08 billion) for the next fiscal year.
During the review, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) slapped Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) on the face after Hung accidentally injured Kuan’s assistant in the eye as Hung was trying to push a poster away.
Kuan and Hung got into a heated exchange, with Hung accusing Kuan of staging a “show” and Kuan scolding Hung for hurting her assistant.
In the end, the committee cut NT$152.8 million from the budget request before passing it.
After the meeting, the KMT caucus and Hung condemned Kuan for “resorting to violence.”
“This was not a slap on my face. It was a slap on Taiwan’s democracy and law,” Hung said.
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) later called upon DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to issue an apology for the conflict.
When asked for comment, Kuan said she slapped Hung because she “couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I’m willing to take full responsibility [for the incident],” Kuan said.
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
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