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.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
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