Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
In an attempt to speed up the passage of the arms budget bill and the review of Control Yuan nominees proposed by President Chen Shui-bian (
While Ma agreed the legislature should deal with the arms budget during the next legislative session, which starts in September, he blamed the bill's delay on the Executive Yuan.
"The Executive Yuan sent the bill to the Legislative Yuan too late for the legislature to place the draft bill on the agenda for the extraordinary session. So the delay is not KMT or Speaker Wang's fault," the KMT chief said after his closed-door meeting with Wang.
The Executive Yuan approved the draft bill on June 14. The extraordinary legislative session ran from June 13 to last Friday.
Wang said the arms budget would pass the legislature, hopefully in the next session.
He also suggested that Ma should not propose raising the approval threshold for Control Yuan, Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan nominations from a majority vote to a two-thirds vote. This would allow the Control Yuan to function again, he said.
"If the party caucus doesn't insist on raising the threshold, then we can deal with the nomination of Control Yuan members pretty soon," Wang said.
Ma, however, insisted that raising the approval threshold would help establish a good system in the legislature and shut out "politicians who are not supposed to get in." "The best way to select the outstanding members is to raise the threshold, so that the Control Yuan will become a non-political institution," Ma said.
The KMT chairman also said that after discussions with People First Party, his party has no immediate plan to demand the Cabinet's resignation.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but