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The legislature passed a law on Monday concerning ill-gotten assets of political parties. It states that assets obtained by political parties after 1945 are illegal and must be returned to the state. This does not include party membership fees and political donations.
The Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations was passed after an 11-hour review on Monday, amid controversy over the use of the term “ill-gotten.” Violators face a jail term of up to five years.
Cabinet spokesperson Tung Cheng-yuan said the premier called the law a milestone for democracy in Taiwan. The law addresses a longstanding issue in Taiwan’s transition from an authoritarian one-party state under the Kuomintang (KMT) to a full representative democracy.
But the KMT responded with a press conference on Tuesday saying the law was illegal and unconstitutional. It said it would use legal means to protect the party’s rights.
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Also this past week, it emerged that the driver of the tour bus that caught fire last week, claiming the lives of an entire tour party, was intoxicated at the time of the accident. Further revelations have given rise to the disturbing speculation that the incident may have been a murder-suicide committed by the driver.
Taoyuan district prosecutors said that forensic tests on samples from the driver’s blood, urine and stomach showed he was drunk driving when the tragedy took place. The results gave a blood alcohol level of over one milligram per liter, several times the legal limit. It has since emerged that the driver, now named as Su Ming-cheng, 53, had been convicted of the sexual assault of a tour guide just weeks prior to the incident. Investigators have also established that the driver had five large plastic bottles of gasoline on board the bus and are looking into the possibility that he may have started the fire deliberately.
The driver, together with a local tour guide and all 24 members of a tour party from Liaoning Province in China, died when fire broke out on the bus on July 19. The party was bound for Taoyuan airport to return home to China after an eight-day tour of Taiwan.
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And finally this past week, the decision to postpone talks with Japan on maritime issues is intended to give the government more time to prepare. That was the word from Tsai Ming-yaw, head of the Association of East Asian Relations, on Thursday. The Association of East Asian Relations is the semi-official body in charge of Taiwan-Japan exchanges.
The first talks were scheduled to begin on July 28, with the launch of a new dialogue mechanism allowing Taiwan and Japan to discuss maritime cooperation. However, it was announced Monday that the talks and the establishment of the dialogue mechanism were being pushed back.
Tsai said Thursday that the delay is intended to give the foreign ministry more time to assemble material and topics for discussion. Tsai said there are no plans to invite fishermen’s groups to take part in the talks, but that their views would be represented.
Tsai did not answer questions about whether the dispute over waters around the Okinotori atoll will be included in the discussions. Japan claims the waters as part of its Exclusive Economic Zone, while Taiwan argues that they are international waters. The issue became controversial in April, when Japan seized a Taiwanese fishing boat operating in the area.