The ruling and opposition parties have begun mobilizing lawmakers for what has been described as a showdown in the upcoming legislative plenary session tomorrow to vote on whether to invite President Chen Shui-bian (
The TSU, which submitted the resolution bill but later attempted to revoke it, failed to keep the bill off the plenary session's agenda after a vote at the legislative rules committee Friday.
TSU deputy legislative whip Chen Chien-ming (
Chen said that the timing and method of a state-of-the-nation address to the legislature must be governed by a set of legal measures that are currently lacking. The content of the address should be decided by the president himself, he added.
Meanwhile, opposition KMT legislator Lin Yi-shi (
No Taiwanese president has ever delivered a report to the Legislative Yuan. Such a report was in the past normally delivered to the National Assembly, which is now a non-standing body.
The amended ROC Constitution allows for the Legislative Yuan to invite the president to deliver a report, but the previous legislature did not call for such an invitation because of concerns that such a move might blur the checks-and-balances relationship between the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan as well as because the political parties believed it was meaningless to listen to a presidential report without being able to field questions.
TSU legislator Su Ying-kuei (
"The president wields power bestowed upon him by the public so he has to shoulder responsibility by reporting to the highest national assembly," he said.
Su considered it inappropriate for the president to promulgate his ideas on unofficial occasions such as during interviews with the media or when receiving guests.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
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