A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator yesterday claimed that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Kuan Chong (
The legislator, Wu Bing-ray (吳秉叡), submitted his accusation in writing to Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭) at a legislative judiciary committee meeting yesterday. Wu promised to look into how many retired civil servants are counting the time they worked for the KMT toward their time employed in the civil service.
"By adding the years they worked for the KMT to the years they worked for the government, some retired officials have violated the law," Wu Bing-ray said.
He said that according to law, political appointees who have held office for more than 15 years are eligible to receive generous monthly pensions.
But of Kuan's declared 26 years of "civil service," the legislator said, 10 years was in fact spent in the KMT's service. If those years were subtracted, Kuan actually spent only 14 years in the civil service and did not qualify for the official pension.
Similarly, Wu Bing-ray said, the 10 years Hu worked for the KMT in his total "24 years of civil service" should render him unable to receive the pension.
Wu said that while Kuan had illegally received a pension of NT$2.49 million (US$74,300) annually, Hu has received NT$1.95 million per year.
"The KMT is clearly mixing the contents of party coffers with those of the state and taxpayers are bearing the burden," Wu said.
The DPP lawmakers singled out former Presidential Office secretary-general Ding Mao-shih (
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS