■ POLITICS
Official’s pension may drop
Former justice minister Morley Shih (施茂林) is likely to lose an approximate NT$200,000 (US$6,600) on his pension after Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) rejected his request to retire as a prosecutor. “His request is not appropriate and not good” Wang said yesterday. By law, a prosecutor’s position is a life-time position unless he or she resigns. Shih was a prosecutor-general of the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office prior to his ministerial post. “We must maintain the independence that belongs to prosecutors so they will not be interfered with or affected by other political facts,” Wang said, without elaborating. Deputy Minister of Justice Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) said the difference between retiring as a prosecutor and retiring as a regular government officer was an additional NT$200,384 in pension money.
■DEFENSE
Minister makes base gaffe
Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) was criticized yesterday for being unfamiliar with the nation’s military bases. On Wednesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) asked during the legislature’s Diplomacy and National Defense Committee meeting whether it would be possible to relocate the military base at Songshan Airport to Taoyuan Airport, to which Chen replied there was no military airport there. It was later pointed out that there is a military facility there. Chen, formerly an Air Force commander-in-chief, later admitted his mistake. KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-min (帥化民) said Chen had left the military a while before he took up the minister’s office, urging the public to have patience.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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