A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus leader said yesterday that his party's top priority in the new session was to push opposition lawmakers to pass proposals on a major construction drive and the downsizing of the legislature.
"The DPP will call on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) caucuses to carry out their pledge to complete these two works right after the legislative session reconvenes," DPP whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.
Ker said that the KMT and PFP had been confident that the Legislative Yuan would be able to finish the tasks in the new session when they ruled out the possibility of a special session to deal with the agenda before Lunar New Year.
"They should publicly unveil their determination to realize their promise," he added.
Last Monday, one day before lawmakers broke for the holidays, the KMT and PFP vetoed proposals for a special plenary session ahead of the regular session to be reconvened on Feb. 6.
Pan-blue lawmakers blocked the motion as they said that the Legislative Yuan has plenty of time to screen the two debates.
Ker, however, said that finalizing the tasks was "imperative since they are decisive to augmenting national competitiveness."
Ker said that KMT and PFP legislators should not break their promise to deal with the two bills as soon as the session reconvenes, adding that the pan-blues could do so by passing a number of bills including the draft organic law on the establishment and management of the resolution trust cooperation, a fund that should help the administration to solve problems thrown up by mismanaged banks and cooperatives.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)