Military: Singapore denies transfer
Singapore's Defense Ministry has denied a foreign wire service report that the ministry will move its "starlight" project from Taiwan to China's Hainan island. In response to an inquiry Wednesday from the Singaporean daily Lianhe Zaobao, a ministry spokesman said the report was completely unfounded. AFP quoted unnamed Taiwan military sources as saying last Sunday that Singapore has decided to move at least part of training facilities and some of its troops in Taiwan to Hainan. The Ministry of National Defense has denied the report. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said Tuesday that it has not heard about the reported development. Under its "starlight" project, Singapore has since 1975 sent troops to Taiwan to receive combat training.
Foreign affairs: US declares its support
In a section of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act passed Wednesday, the US House of Representatives declared its support for Taiwan as "a mature democracy that fully respects human rights," and reiterated that "it is the policy of the United States that any resolution of the Taiwan Straits issue must be peaceful and include the assent of the people of Taiwan." The act, House Resolution 1646, now goes to the Senate where final approval is expected soon. Representative David Wu, the first Taiwan-born US congressman, said that "Through this bill, Congress has expressed America's strong support for the people of Taiwan and their right to freely determine their own future." The bill also recognizes Taiwan as a non-NATO ally for the purpose of transferring defensive articles and services.
Crime: Bomb hoax suspect arrested
Taipei aviation police announced yesterday that they arrested a man involved in a bomb hoax on the EVA Airways flight taken by first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) to the US. EVA Airways received a phone call from an anonymous man Sept. 19 claiming that explosives had been planted on the plane. However, the plane was allowed to take off after a thorough search was carried out and no explosives were found. The suspect, surnamed Tsen, 33, called EVA Airways from a public phone booth in Taichung County, a police spokesman said. Having checked thousands of phone calls and conducted follow-up investigations, police found that Tsen's voice was similar to that of the suspect phone call, he said. The suspect, accused of committing intimidation and an offense against aviation security, was turned over to the Taoyuan District Court for further interrogation.
Air safety: Conference comes to Taipei
The 33rd International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) meeting will be held in Taipei from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3, the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) said yesterday. This will mark the first time that the US-based international flight safety promotion organization has held its annual conference in Taiwan since its inception in 1964. The ASC, an ISASI member, obtained the right to host the 2002 ISASI congress in 1999. ASC officials said the conference will focus on accident investigation results and technologies, initiatives for the betterment of flight safety, new threats to aviation safety and future challenges. Billy Chang (張國政), director-general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration and ASC Managing Director Kay Yong (戎凱) will attend the three-day meeting.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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