The Ministry of National Defense yesterday told a news conference that it will continue to draft eligible Taiwanese to military service next year, the second time it has pushed back the target date for ending conscription as Taiwan tries to shift to an all-volunteer military force.
To maintain a force large enough to defend the nation, the ministry requires 9,600 men born before 1993 to perform one year of military service, said Lieutenant General Hsu Yen-pu (徐衍璞), who is responsible for the military’s human resources.
The military’s plan was to end conscription this year and discharge the latest conscripts after one year of service at the end of this year, leaving an all-volunteer force by next year, although four months of military training would still be mandatory.
However, the ministry last year said that it would continue to draft eligible men born before 1994 to enlist another 23,100 soldiers for a year of military service this year.
The plan was revised because the military does not expect to meet its recruitment target by the end of the year, but the ministry said that the policy of moving toward an all-volunteer force remains unchanged.
Those born after 1994 will be exempt from one-year compulsory military service, but will still be required to undergo four months of mandatory military training upon reaching conscription age, Hsu said.
Hsu said that the ministry would conduct a thorough review of military staff before making a decision on whether it would push the implementation of volunteer military service to 2018.
Once the target of 90 percent volunteer soldiers and officers is reached, the ministry will end conscription, Hsu said.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS