Several political heavyweights, including former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), are to attend a national conference on constitutional reform on Saturday next week, civic groups said yesterday.
Led by the Civil Alliance to Promote Constitutional Reform (CAPCR), the conference is to invite representatives from up to 15 major and minor political parties, including 40 lawmakers from across the political spectrum.
Civic groups intend for the conference to serve as an opportunity for political leaders to consolidate consensus on several key issues on the constitutional amendment next year, such as lowering the voting age and revamping the legislature’s electoral system.
CAPCR member Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群), a professor of law at Chung Yuan University, said that the group expected the two major political parties to present their agendas for increasing public participation in a second phase of constitutional reforms leading up to 2018.
The group proposes a series of grassroots forums, as it claims that past constitutional amendments have been elitist in nature and lacked public input.
Hsu said that through comprehensive reforms, a wide range of issues could be addressed — including protection of Aboriginal rights, reforming the local administrative system and amending phrases that presume an eventual unification with China.
He said that the campaign aims for a major overhaul of the Constitution, adding that reforms could in effect establish a “new constitution” for the nation.
“We hope that the drive for constitutional reform can achieve comprehensive goals and start from the bottom up; it will not be limited to a short-term agenda ending in 2016,” Hsu said.
Taiwan Association for Human Rights member Shih Yi-hsiang (施逸翔) said that although the Legislative Yuan is also holding a series of public hearings on constitutional reform, such official conferences limit attendance to a small number of experts and decisionmakers.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
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