Hundreds of former Republic of China Marine Corps members gathered at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei yesterday to protest the Ministry of National Defense’s plan to put the Marine Corps under the command of the Republic of China Army.
While delivering a report to the Legislative Yuan in March, Minster of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) said that the ministry was considering merging the Marine Corps into the army in an initiative called the Yong Ku project.
“We do not believe President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) promise that the Yong Ku project will not result in the total disbanding the Marine Corps and the military police headquarters,” protest convener Hsu Ting-pang (許定邦) said yesterday, adding that even if the corps were not disbanded, the merger would still weaken it too much.
Photo: CNA
Hsu said he hoped the protest would encourage the country to strengthen national consciousness education, be 100 percent forthcoming toward the dangers facing it, increase defense spending and bolster the procurement of weapons and defensive equipment.
“We hope the government will rescind its policy of having an all-volunteer armed forces and return to the half-compulsory, half-voluntary system,” Hsu said, adding that the demonstrators also want the government to reinstate the policy of keeping garrisons on outlying islands, as well as carry out a review on the current formation of the armed forces.
“The nation should seek to re-establish its dignity and forbid its retired generals from visiting China,” Hsu said.
The former marines call themselves the “Fire Ants” in a nod to the red shirts they wore for the event that bore the words “A Marine for a day, A Marine for Life.”
Hsu said yesterday was the second time the group has met to convey a message to the government, adding that the rally attended by hundreds of former marines had been three weeks in the planning.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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