The USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group's visit to Hong Kong has nothing to do with the cross-strait situation, and is merely to allow the group's sailors to spend their Christmas vacation in the harbor city, a US navy commander said yesterday. \nChina's Xinhua News Agency yesterday reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group arrived in the port of Hong Kong yesterday. \nThe group's plan to stay in Hong Kong for three or four days is simply to give sailors a chance to visit the city, as many of the US service members have never visited the former British colony. \nAlso, Hong Kong is one of the best harbors in the Pacific, Rear Admiral Doug Crowder, chief commander of the group, was quoted by the Chinese agencies as saying. \nSECURITY CONCERNS \nAsked which harbor is the group's next destination, Crowder declined to comment based on security concerns. \nAccording to the aircraft carrier's spokesman, the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group, including the aircraft carrier itself, as well as three escort ships, will stay in Hong Kong for three to four days. \nWEATHER \nLocal weather conditions will be the deciding factor for when the four vessels decide to leave. \nThe battle group has a total of 6,500 sailors and it was the first time for most of them to visit Hong Kong. \nThe USS Abraham Lincoln is US' fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. \nThe Abraham Lincoln's keel was laid on Nov. 3, 1984 in Newport News, Virginia. Four years later the ship was christened and began a series of performance trials leading up to commissioning in Norfolk, Virginia on Nov. 11, 1989.
PHOTO: AP
TOO TIRED: Investigators found that the pilot’s lack of alertness could be attributed to a lack of sleep the previous night, when he had slept with his child It was a copilot’s inappropriate operation of the aircraft and the pilot’s insufficient alertness that led to a hard landing of a China Airlines cargo flight on Dec. 13, 2018, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. Flight CI6844, a Boeing 747-409 which departed from Hong Kong International Airport, landed on the pre-threshold area of runway L5 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, about 21m before the head of the runway, an investigation report said. The hard landing damaged three runway lights, but none of the personnel on board sustained any injuries, the report said. When approaching the runway, the copilot failed to maintain
DISTRUST WARRANTED? The WHO is under China’s control and has become a useless organization, while data from China cannot be trusted, a Control Yuan member said China’s demand that the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, not be referred to with names like the “Wuhan pneumonia” betrays its lack of confidence in itself, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told lawmakers yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) asked Su, during a interpellation at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, for his view on China’s attempts to redeem its national image in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included China’s efforts to “bleach” its image, including having WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus publicly praise its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, and thanking it for buying time
REPEAT OFFENDER: The man went outside for exercise on Wednesday and then left his home on Saturday with his girlfriend, officials said A New Taipei City man has been fined NT$400,000 (US$13,221) and ordered into government quarantine after breaking home quarantine for a second time on Saturday. The 25-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳) returned to Taiwan on Sunday last week and was ordered to home quarantine until Sunday. He was seen leaving his home on a scooter with his girlfriend on Saturday, three days after he was fined NT$200,000 for going outside to exercise, police said. Chen has now been placed in a quarantine center arranged by the district office and health center of the district where he lives, police said. Police warned the public
Taipei residents who stay at hotels in the city during their 14-day mandatory quarantine period are eligible to apply for the city’s NT$7,000 subsidy, with online applications to be launched next week. Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) on Monday said Taipei residents who have COVID-19 Health Declaration and Home Quarantine Notice dated after March 19 and a quarantine hotel receipt for the dates covered by the quarantine period, would be eligible for the subsidy. The Taipei City Government on Sunday told the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) that so many city residents are under home quarantine that about 90 percent of
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