Lawmakers yesterday agreed to extend the current legislative session by two weeks to complete the review of an additional budget request of NT$11 billion (US$380.62 million) for a 3 percent pay raise for civil servants.
The decision would ensure that the pay raise proposal takes effect on July 1, as scheduled by the government, should the legislature approve the budget request before the legislature recesses on June 14.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has called a meeting for party caucus whips to decide on items to be reviewed before the legislature goes into summer recess.
Lawmakers decided to extend the session to complete reviews of the pay raise budget, a budget request of NT$4.8 billion for monthly pensions to be distributed to more low-income households, NT$2.9 billion for tuition subsidies for children under the age of five and vocational high-school students from economically disadvantaged families, and a budget request for state-owned and non-government enterprises.
They also decided to schedule a confirmation vote on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) four grand justice nominees — Chen Be-yue (陳碧玉), Huang Hsi-chun (黃璽君), Lo Chang-fa (羅昌發) and Tang Te-tsung (湯德宗) — before the recess begins.
The terms of four of the 15 incumbents on the Council of Grand Justices will end on Sept. 30.
New justices are to take the bench on Oct. 1 as required by law.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
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