President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday pledged that the government would give special consideration to military personnel as it pursues pension reform, and would not tolerate any attempts to stigmatize the military.
Speaking at an event to mark Armed Forces Day today, Tsai urged the military to take the reforms in stride, saying that the problems in the current pension system have developed over time and if they are not addressed, they would affect the future of military retirees.
The problems escalated because past governments did not have the courage to tackle pension reform, Tsai said, adding that blame should not be placed on any single individual or occupation.
Photo: CNA
She said pension reform is not an easy task, because it requires discussions between the government and each category of workers to address their particular concerns.
The military, for example, tends to have a short service period, early retirement and a high turnover rate, Tsai said.
The government will take these factors into consideration in its pension reform plans, she said.
The president added that she would not turn a blind eye to any attempts to stigmatize or mock the military.
She was referring to complaints by retired public servants that they are often depicted as enjoying lucrative retirement benefits and are blamed for the problems in the pension system.
An alliance of retired and active military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers is planning to take to the streets today to protest against what it called “stigmatization” of public-sector pensioners.
Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General Chen Chung-chi (陳中吉) said it is not appropriate for active military personnel to take part in the protest.
However, the ministry will not set out to determine whether any active personnel join the protest, and any penalties will depend on the demonstrators’ behavior during the protest, he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,