Lawmakers yesterday finalized negotiations on planned pension reforms for retired military officers and non-commissioned officers, and resolved to send 15 amendments on which no consensus was reached to a vote today.
The disputed amendments center on whether the 18 percent preferential interest rate for some savings accounts of retirees should be phased out, the starting income replacement rate, the eligibility for family members of deceased officers and non-coms to receive benefits and the conditions for splitting pensions in the case of a divorce.
The caucuses agreed to advance those amendments on which consensus had been reached to a second reading at a plenary session.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
To offset a shortfall in the pension fund for military retirees as a result of the government downsizing the military, the four caucuses agreed to assign the Veterans Affairs Council to budget NT$100 billion (US$3.31 billion) in 10 years from the amendments’ promulgation.
The caucuses agreed the council is to budget no less than NT$20 billion every two years over the course of that period.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said that he granted a request by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus to assign 20 legislators to speak on the disputed amendments before they are voted on today.
Photo: CNA
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the New Power Party and the People First Party caucuses would each appoint two members to speak, Su said.
The negotiations had a rather “cordial” undercurrent, Su said, who said he hoped that each caucus would take some time to consider whether further consensus could be reached before going into today’s plenary session.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the DPP had anticipated that proposals regarding the starting income replacement rate, the 18 percent preferential interest rate and the portion of salaries to be allocated monthly for the pension fund would have to be put to vote.
He called on the KMT caucus not to filibuster, and refrain from quarrelling over the less controversial amendments scheduled to be voted on today to “set a good example” and change the legislature’s culture.
Asked why members of the KMT caucus did not sign the resolutions reached during the negotiations, KMT caucus secretary-general Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said the caucus’ stance is not to endorse “the DPP’s pension reform.”
However, it retracted some of its motions regarding less contentious draft articles during the negotiations, and would respect the resolutions going into today’s vote, Lee said.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS