Starting on July 1, the spiritual doctrine guiding members of the nation's armed forces will be reduced to "three articles of faith" (三大信念), Minister of National Defense Lee Tien-yu (李天羽) said yesterday.
The armed forces have followed five articles (
The five articles were usually repeated and yelled out loud by soldiers while marching or during roll calls.
The ministry decided to do away with "doctrine" and "leadership" after a period of deliberation and assessment.
"This is a done deal and we will carry it out," Lee said during yesterday's National Defense Committee meeting in the legislature.
"The policy was well-thought out and planned before we decided to carry it out," Lee said. "The new `three articles of faith' will be a lot more practical."
The ministry also formally announced the promotions of four high-ranking officers; one three-star general, two three-star admirals and one two-star vice admiral.
Warfare adviser
Vice Minister of National Defense Chu Kai-sheng (
Deputy Chief of General Staff Wang Li-shen (王立申) will succeed Lin as the commander-in-chief of the Navy, while Deputy Minister of National Defense Vice Admiral Kao Kuang-hsi (高廣圻) will succeed Wang and will be promoted to the rank of three-star admiral.
In response to complaints from lawmakers that claimed that Lee "had immediately hired his own favorites after assuming office" on Monday, Lee said he had only changed less than 10 percent of the minister's personnel.
"I have only hired five staff members who will work closely with me," he said. "I heard rumors that I would replace at least a dozen members of staff with my favorites. The truth is, it never happened."
Lee added that the promotions for the four high-ranking officers were not his idea.
"It was actually the result of brainstorming by the president, former minister Lee Jye (李傑), the commanders-in-chief of the three services and myself," he said. "This personnel arrangement was decided on last week, even before I took office."
Hour-long talk
Speaking for the first time at the Legislative Yuan as defense minister, Lee Tien-yu also confirmed that he had met with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at the president's residence on Thursday last week for an hour-long talk.
During the meeting, Lee Tien-yu said, the president talked with him about the need for the country to purchase F-16 jet fighters from the US, in addition to discussing his new position.
Lee Tien-yu said the president told him that his top task upon assuming the post of defense minister would be to upgrade the armed forces' defense capabilities through the purchase of new weapons systems and equipment.
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
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
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