The New Power Party (NPP) legislative caucus yesterday held its first meeting, with members reaching a consensus on the division of labor to promote amendments in line with the party’s focus on progressive changes.
The caucus pledged to promote various bills, including amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which had met resistance in the last legislature.
The party’s “transitional justice” task force is to be convened by Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), with his team working on reclaiming ill-gotten party assets and supervising changes to high-school curriculum guidelines — an issue that sparked serious controversy last year.
A task force on “returning rights to the people” is to be headed by Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, who is to push for changes to the Referendum Act, the recall act and other related laws.
Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) and Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智), a lawyer and NPP candidate who lost in the contest for Hsinchu City’s legislative seat to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), are to be in charge of a team on legislative reforms.
NPP caucus whip Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) is to be in charge of drafting laws against media monopolization and oversee the operations of the National Communications Commission.
NPP Chairman and Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is to lead a team that deals with the institutionalization of the presidential transition of power, with a public hearing set to be held on Friday.
Huang said he would also convene a “non-nuclear homeland” team, which plans to send a request to Taiwan Power Co after the Lunar New Year holiday for the caucus to visit the Second Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and review plans for the power plant’s retirement and its storage pools for spent fuel rods.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
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