The New Power Party (NPP) legislative caucus yesterday held its first meeting, with members reaching a consensus on the division of labor to promote amendments in line with the party’s focus on progressive changes.
The caucus pledged to promote various bills, including amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which had met resistance in the last legislature.
The party’s “transitional justice” task force is to be convened by Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), with his team working on reclaiming ill-gotten party assets and supervising changes to high-school curriculum guidelines — an issue that sparked serious controversy last year.
A task force on “returning rights to the people” is to be headed by Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, who is to push for changes to the Referendum Act, the recall act and other related laws.
Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) and Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智), a lawyer and NPP candidate who lost in the contest for Hsinchu City’s legislative seat to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), are to be in charge of a team on legislative reforms.
NPP caucus whip Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) is to be in charge of drafting laws against media monopolization and oversee the operations of the National Communications Commission.
NPP Chairman and Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is to lead a team that deals with the institutionalization of the presidential transition of power, with a public hearing set to be held on Friday.
Huang said he would also convene a “non-nuclear homeland” team, which plans to send a request to Taiwan Power Co after the Lunar New Year holiday for the caucus to visit the Second Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and review plans for the power plant’s retirement and its storage pools for spent fuel rods.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
Taipei is participating in Osaka’s Festival of Lights this year, with a 3m-tall bubble tea light installation symbolizing Taiwan’s bubble tea culture. The installation is designed as a bubble tea cup and features illustrations of Taipei’s iconic landmarks, such as Taipei 101, the Red House and North Gate, as well as soup dumplings and the matchmaking deity the Old Man Under the Moon (月下老人), affectionately known as Yue Lao (月老). Taipei and Osaka have collaborated closely on tourism and culture since Taipei first participated in the festival in 2018, the Taipei City Department of Information and Tourism said. In February, Osaka represented
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
IDENTITY SHIFT: Asked to choose to identify as either Taiwanese or Chinese, 83.3 percent of respondents chose Taiwanese, while 8.4 percent chose Chinese An overwhelming majority of Taiwanese, 71.5 percent, think that Taiwan should compete in international competitions under the name “Taiwan,” a Taiwan Brain Trust survey published yesterday showed. Referring to Taiwan’s victory last month at the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12, the survey results showed that 89.1 percent of respondents said that Taiwan’s exceptional performance in sporting competitions furthers national unity. Only 18.8 percent of respondents supported Taiwanese teams’ continued use of the name “Chinese Taipei” in international sporting competitions, the survey showed. Among Taiwan’s leading political parties, the name “Team Taiwan” was supported by 91.1 percent of self-identified Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters,
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