The New Power Party (NPP) criticized slow government progress on key reforms yesterday, just ahead of the anniversary of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration.
“We’re worried that many reforms will only be half done,” NPP caucus whip Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said, citing slow progress on articles for furthering transitional justice, along with an amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法).
He added that while cross-strait relations are an important domestic consideration, they should not serve as an excuse to drag out political “normalization,” such as removing the last vestiges of the provincial government.
Photo: Yang Chun-hui, Taipei Times
“When we proposed an agenda for constitutional reform last year, the ruling party said it would set its own pace and schedule for pushing reform, but the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] is about to enter its second year in power. Constitutional reform is not something that can be achieved in one big leap — if we still cannot see a schedule, I have trouble imagining how any constitutional reforms can be accomplished by the end of the DPP’s term,” NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said.
Constitutional amendments are necessary to fundamentally address issues such as lowering the voting age and clarifying the nation’s relationship with Aborigines, he said.
NPP Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) criticized the slow progress in realizing housing policy goals, as well as the failure to ameliorate the long working hours and low wages faced by the nation’s young people.
“Currently, the issue of providing public childcare is still just empty talk,” Hung said.
NPP Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, an Amis, criticized the passage of a bill aimed at reviving Aboriginal languages for failing to specify the sources of funding.
Michael Lin (林世煜), president of the NPP’s think tank, criticized the DPP for treating voters as “teammates” before the election and “pig-heads” afterward.
Citing the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program bill passing a review by the legislature’s Economics Committee, he said the DPP had become more arrogant, willing to discuss its policies prior to elections, but “treating people as its enemies” afterward.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching