In an effort to enlist enough recruits for the all-volunteer military, the Ministry of National Defense last week announced it would raise the upper age limit from 24 to 26 for the second Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) recruitment drive later this year.
The cut-off date for the first ROTC recruitment drive was Dec. 15 last year, and all recruits completed their interviews and physical exams by Jan. 6 this year, the ministry said, adding that about 300 recruits joined in the first wave.
The second wave of recruitment is to begin on April 2 and last until April 30, it said.
In response to a shortage of First Lieutenants and Second Lieutenants in the army, the ministry is stepping up recruitment through a program to fast-track non-commission officers (NCOs) to first and second lieutenants and a one-year program to train commissioned officers.
Relaxing the age restriction would encourage people to join the military, the ministry said.
The maximum age at which one can join the Air Force as a pilot would not be relaxed and remain 24-years-old, the ministry said.
In accordance with Article 21 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), Chinese nationals may not enlist in the military unless they have been registered as residents in Taiwan for more than 20 years.
The Act Regarding Hong Kong and Macao Affairs (香港澳門關係條例) stipulates that former Hong Kong and Macao residents cannot enlist under the ROTC program unless they have held Taiwanese residency for at least 10 years.
Officials said 120 junior colleges and institutes are collaborating with the ministry, which hopes to fill 80 percent of the military’s commissioned officer billets by the second half of next year.
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,