After being blocked by the pan-blue alliance for more than one year in the legislature, a statute designed to divest the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of its stolen party assets was put on the legislative agenda yesterday.
The statute passed the pan-blue controlled Procedure Committee after People First Party (PFP) lawmakers turned their backs on their political ally over the issue.
The PFP's move came as a shock to the KMT, as the parties had allegedly reached an under-the-table deal on Monday swapping KMT opposition to an arms procurement deal for PFP support in obstructing the statute.
However, just because the statute was put on the agenda is not a guarantee that the legislature would review the bill, as the agenda set by the Procedure Committee still has to be approved by the legislature on Friday.
PFP Legislator Hwang Yih-jiau (
But KMT Legislator Tseng Yung-chuan (
"We find it regrettable that the PFP came around and supported a bill which is full of the ideas of partisan struggle. We are in favor of the anti-corruption movement, but this statute has nothing to do with fighting corruption," he said.
The statute will be referred to the Home and Nations Committee for preliminarily review should yesterday's agenda be approved on Friday.
Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
Meanwhile, Premier Su Tseng-chang (
"Ma has always claimed that being clean is his political motto, and that he would always fight against corruption," Su said.
"Fine. I would ask him to help this proposal move forward and implement it as soon as possible," the premier said.
Su made the remarks when he was approached by the press for comment yesterday.
He condemned the KMT for having stolen money and property from the people decades ago, and for now taking advantage of its legislative majority to boycott the proposal and refusing to return its stolen assets to the people.
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS