President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen made the suggestion after listening to a Cabinet report on the 2006 Central Government budget plan.
Premier Frank Hsieh (
Vice President Annette Lu (
After listening to the briefing, Chen made several suggestions, including no pay hikes for government employees, military personnel and public school teachers, but increases in research and development funding and defense and diplomatic spending.
Chen said the Cabinet should try its best to realize the goal of raising annual R&D spending to 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) next year to speed up Taiwan's scientific and technological development.
With a view to beefing up Taiwan's defense capabilities, Chen said military spending should be increased to 3 percent of the GDP in three years.
In the face of China's relentless diplomatic suppression of Taiwan and the fact that the nation's foreign aid still falls below UN-set standards, Chen said the diplomatic budget should be raised at an appropriate rate.
He further said the law enforcement-related budget should be raised to accentuate the government's determination to crack down on crime and maintain law and order.
Over the past five years, Chen said, government investment in expanding domestic demand and infrastructure construction have consistently registered negative growth. In order to boost economic development and increase job opportunities, he said, the Cabinet should study the feasibility of increasing spending in those fields.
According to the DGBAS-drafted budget plan, government revenues are projected at NT$1.4 trillion and expenditures are forecast at NT$1.59 trillion, leaving a budget deficit of NT$190 billion. Moreover, the government will have to repay NT$65 billion in outstanding debts next year.
In addition to using a budget surplus of NT$21.7 billion from the previous year, the government plans to float NT$239 billion-worth of state bonds to make ends meet.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching