A number of major bills and amendments are scheduled to be discussed during the new legislative session that opens on Feb. 26, which will mark the first legislative session after the latest Cabinet reshuffle.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will submit priority bills for this session, including a proposed amendment to the Public Debt Act (公共債務法), a proposed amendment to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenue and Expenditure (財政收支劃分法) and an amendment to the anti-media monopoly bill.
The Executive Yuan will also submit an amendment to the nation’s pension programs in April, over which the KMT and the DPP remain at odds, lawmakers said.
“It will take time to incubate the pension reform plan,” KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) said, adding that reform should progress step-by-step through negotiations.
Premier-designate Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) is expected to report on the new Cabinet’s major policy goals and agenda for the coming year during the session.
Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said that the new Cabinet needs to put greater effort into helping lawmakers fully understand the amendments to be discussed.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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