President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will inspect a navy exercise and lead a media inspection of submarine operations on Thursday at the Tsoying base in Kaohsiung, Presidential Office Spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗) said yesterday.
"The Presidential Office and the Ministry of National Defense hope that the military exercises will help the media better understand the military," Chen Wen-tsung said. "The visit to the submarines has nothing to do with future government purchases of diesel submarines from the United States."
"President Chen will lead reporters into the interior of the submarines," Chen Wen-tsung said.
military exercises
The navy's exercise is a part of the annual Han Kuang military exercises which have been held since 1985.
Last Wednesday the air force landed two Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway in southern Tainan County, which were refueled, armed, then returned to the skies within 40 minutes.
The army also held an amphibious war game involving 5,000 military personnel in Pingtung County.
The Presidential Office arranged for the media to inspect not only military facilities but also economic and cultural infrastructure in the south of the country.
"In addition to the submarines, the president will visit major biochemical and high-tech companies at the Tainan Science Park. Then, the president will exchange points of view with the media on general issues," Chen Wen-tsung said.
frigates
According to the ministry, the navy's exercise on Thursday will involve a number of naval vessels, and some reporters will be invited to inspect the Lafayette-class frigates.
Media outlets claimed that the purpose of Chen Shui-bian's visit to the base was to promote the importance of purchasing new submarines, which the government is negotiating with the US government.
"This time, we will invite reporters to personally witness the operation of the submarines in military maneuvers, simulating underwater engagement with the enemy," a Presidential Office official said.
Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
RSS