The New Power Party (NPP) yesterday objected to credentials of nominees to the National Communications Commission (NCC), preventing cross-caucus negotiations from reaching a consensus and delaying confirmation votes.
Negotiations were called by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) to finalize a confirmation vote date for five new members of the commission before the end of the legislative session, with NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) refusing to agree to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposals to schedule the vote for July 5 on the grounds that NCC Secretary-General Jason Ho (何吉森) was yet to submit updated evidence of academic work.
He had earlier been criticized by Huang for listing himself as the author of a paper that he had only co-authored.
“If there is any delay [in the confirmation vote], it will not be the fault of the Legislative Yuan,” Huang said, adding that the Executive Yuan had failed to provide the evidence over the past two weeks.
“The sooner they send in the evidence, the sooner we can hold negotiations on when to have the confirmation vote,” he said, adding that he had been unable to locate many of the publications Ho listed as his work.
“The question is not just a matter of keeping the material up to date; there is also the possibility of fraud, which would influence a candidate’s qualifications,” NPP caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said, rejecting proposals to set the July 5 date with a proviso that a vote would be held only if the material was provided.
The NPP agreed to hold new negotiations over when to stage a vote as soon as the materials were submitted, with Kao Ming-chiu (高明秋), head of the Legislative Yuan’s conference department, saying that the Executive Yuan promised to submit the materials next week.
Reforming the commission has been a signature issue for Huang, who played a prominent role in the “anti-media monopoly” movement against Want Want China Broadband’s failed attempt to acquire cable television channels owned by China Network Systems.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS