The legislature is to resume its plenary session on Friday as caucus whips from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party and the Taiwan Solidarity Union yesterday agreed on an agenda, including sending draft bills on establishing a monitoring mechanism for cross-strait negotiations to committee review.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) held an inter-party negotiation to discuss issues surrounding resumption of legislative operations after protesters end their occupation of the main chamber tomorrow.
The caucus whips agreed that only two issues are to be dealt with on Friday — a referral of all draft bills for a monitoring mechanism to the Internal Administration Committee, including the version favored by the students, and referral of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) request to confirm the nomination of Supreme Prosecutors’ Office head prosecutor Yen Ta-ho (顏大和) to be prosecutor-general to the Judicial Committee for deliberation.
Student protesters burst into the legislative chamber on the evening of March 18, a day after KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), chair of the meeting of a joint committee, took just 30 seconds to announce that the cross-strait service trade agreement had cleared the committee review and would be sent to the floor.
Protester leaders have said that the occupation of the legislature would end at 6pm tomorrow.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai