1)
President Ma Ying-jeou promising that the military police will not be scrapped in the government’s next streamlining of the military. Ma made the comments on Friday on a visit to a military police command center in Taipei.
The government is planning to cut the number of troops from 220,000 to around 180,000. The goal is to shift from a conscript-based military to an all-volunteer military. There have been rumors that the military police will be scrapped under the five-year restructuring program.
But President Ma Ying-jeou said the military police has made great contributions to our country and will continue to be an integral part of the military.
2)
The Chinese authorities are set to allow residents of ten more cities to visit Taiwan as independent travelers.
Chinese and Taiwanese tourism officials made the announcement on Friday. Starting Aug. 18, the number of such cities will rise to 36. The total number of independent Chinese travelers to Taiwan will remain capped at 4,000 a day. Another 5,000 Chinese tourists are allowed to come in groups each day.
3)
An academic scandal that forced the education minister to resign has snowballed, with more scholars suspected of foul play.
Education Minister Chiang Wei-ling resigned on Monday after he was implicated in a peer review scandal. Chiang was said to be linked to a scholar who allegedly faked peer reviews of his papers. Chiang appeared as a co-writer in some of the 60 papers withdrawn by an academic journal.
Meanwhile, the technology ministry said on Wednesday that after further investigation, the ministry found that Chiang did not participate in the peer review fraud. The ministry said that an e-mail from the academic journal, the Journal of Vibration and Control (JVC), has as also indicated Chiang was not involved in the fraud.
Following Chiang’s resignation, Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta was said to have an unreasonably high output of papers in recent years. On Tuesday opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Kuan Bi-ling said data show that Chiu’s name appeared on 152 papers in 2005. She said that’s an average of one paper for every two days. Kuan called on Premier Jiang Yi-huah to look into the matter to see whether foul play was involved.
On Wednesday health ministry spokesman Wang Jet-chau explained that the figure was not inflated. He also said that the few years around 2005 were the peak of Chiu’s research career. He also said that Chiu was personally involved in the work leading up to all 152 papers, and that he is not just a nominal author.