The Marine Corps’ grueling “Paradise Road” test to win Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit certification was listed as a reasonable training maneuver and not mistreatment under an amendment to Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) passed by the legislature yesterday.
To pass the test, trainees must crawl along a 50m-long rock and coral-filled path and complete a variety of exercises along the way.
It is considered “necessary training” to for service personnel who hope to become frogmen.
Photo courtesy of the National Geographic Channel
The “Paradise Road” test is the final stage of a 10-week intensive training session that recruits for the marine’s Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit have to undergo that challenges their fitness and resilience to the limit.
In the wake of the death of 24-year-old army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), who died on July 4 last year after being forced to exercise as punishment for taking a smartphone onto his base, there has been widespread public discussion about reforming the military’s management system, as well as other cases of abuse to men serving their mandatory conscription service.
The Executive Yuan proposed the amendment that passed yesterday to establish a definition of “abuse” in the hopes of prevent a recurrence of the Hung tragedy, because the code did not give any guidance on what kind of behavior by commanders would constitute an abuse of subordinates.
The amendment stipulates that inhuman treatment of service personnel in excess of what is necessary for education, training, service or combat and insults the nation’s military forces shall be considered “abuse.”
Under the amendment, the Ministry of National Defense must draw up bylaws to define what is necessary for education, training, service and combat.
Meanwhile, lawmakers passed an amendment to the Medical Care Act (醫療法) to expand the government’s assistance to patients from low-income to low-and-middle income families who need of emergency medical treatment.
The amendment requires hospitals and clinics to provide emergency medical care to patients regardless of their ability to pay for such treatment.
It also requires municipal and county social administrative authorities to provide subsidies to such patients to help them pay for such treatment.
Previously the act’s requirement mandating hospitals and clinics provide emergency treatment only applied to people from low-income families.
Lawmakers also passed an amendment to the Labor Pension Act (勞工退休金條例) that requires employers to make monthly deposits into retirement funds for foreign employees who are married to Taiwanese and who hold residency and work permits.
The deposit shall be equal to 6 percent of the employee’s wages.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS