President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has expressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to US President George W. Bush for the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (
"We believe the re-construction will be completed soon under the lead of the US President Bush and we hope the residents can return to normal as soon as possible," he said.
According to the ministry, no casualties involving Taiwanese expatriates have so far been reported, although some expatriates' homes have been destroyed. The ministry has mobilized Taiwanese associations and non-government charities such as the Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation's US branches, to offer emergency aid to affected Taiwanese expatriates, ministry spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said.
Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific nations -- including tsunami-battered Sri Lanka -- promised yesterday to send money and disaster relief experts to the US to help deal with the aftermath of Katrina.
"There should not be an assumption that because America is the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, this isn't a major challenge and a major crisis," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Australia topped the list of those in the region who pledged aid, with a promise of A$10 million (US$7.6 million) to the American Red Cross. Japan and Singapore were also quick to promise help.
Venezuela offered humanitarian aid and fuel. Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp pledged a US$1 million donation for hurricane aid.
Israel has offered hundreds of doctors, trauma experts and other medical staff as well as field hospitals and other relief. Other offers came from Russia, Canada, France and many other countries.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
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