The Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday passed an initial review of draft amendments to the Act of Military Service for Officers and Noncommissioned Officers of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍軍官士官服役條例).
The passage came after 20 hours of clause-by-clause review on Wednesday and yesterday amid protests by veterans opposing reform outside.
Military personnel who have served for at least 20 years would be entitled to a monthly pension that is 55 percent of two times their salary and the percentage would increase by 2 percent for each additional year of service over 20 years up to a maximum of 90 percent for officers and 95 percent for noncommissioned officers, according to the draft amendments.
The minimum monthly pension for retired military personnel is to be NT$38,990, according to the draft amendments.
Retired military personnel with a monthly pension lower than NT$38,990 — the new pension floor set by the amendments — would not be affected by the cuts.
Toward the end of the initial review, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators raised banners and shouted: “Enact [the draft amendments] for current military personnel first and postpone them for retired military personnel.”
“The Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] caucus has continuously communicated and coordinated [with others] and given in where it can,” DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.
The DPP caucus knows that the KMT caucus wants to create opposition and conflict, but it has nonetheless allowed KMT lawmakers to express their opinions, Ker said.
Some details in the bill might be adjusted, but its general direction has been set, he added.
Interim meetings are to be held to finish the second and third readings of the draft amendments, he said, adding that the procedure would not be rushed to allow the proposed changes to take effect on July 1 as planned.
Veterans’ group 800 Heroes said in a statement last night that the government has completely ignored the wishes of veterans to not retroactively apply pension reform to retirees and has abandoned its promise to them.
The group will end their 444-day protest in their camp outside the legislature to prepare for another long-term fight to oppose the planned pension reform, it said.
Next week, it will convene meetings to decide its next step, which might include more mass protests, it added.
The group will continue to organize frequent protests at different locations to fight for the justice and fairness they deserve, it said.
Additional reporting by Ann Maxon
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS