The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday it was studying the possibility of drafting a decree on the role of the armed forces in disaster relief in the wake of Typhoon Morakot and submitting it as a priority bill to the legislature.
KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said that since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had expressed the hope that the military would include disaster prevention in its mandate, he has instructed the party’s Policy Committee and think tank to draw up a draft bill to regulate the armed forces’ participation in disaster relief and make such participation more effective.
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said he believed the legislature would pass the bill if both the ruling and opposition parties reached a consensus.
During their weekly luncheon with Ma, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) discussed the Executive Yuan’s draft post-Morakot reconstruction bill, which the legislature will begin reviewing in a special session this afternoon.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said Wang and Liu had discussed the content of the bill and amount of the special budget needed for reconstruction.
The Executive Yuan has proposed to a budget of NT$100 billion (US$3.12 billion), while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has suggested NT$200 billion.
Wang Yu-chi said the luncheon participants thought the eight-year, NT$80 billion water management project authorized by the former DPP government was effective in addressing the problems caused by rivers under the jurisdiction of local governments. However, the money for the rivers managed by the central government was not enough and needed to be boosted.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
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