Veteran team swimmer Wang Han (王瀚) plans to conquer the Taiwan Strait later this year.
The cross-strait swim will be Wang's first attempt in nine years since he and his team swam across the Messina Strait in June 1998.
Between 1986 and 1998, Wang and his team swam across 12 channels or straits around the world.
Wang, 55, said at a news conference that the cross-strait swim will be attempted by swimmers from both sides of the strait in three stages between this August and August 2009.
He lamented that despite economic prosperity, Taiwanese are not familiar with the oceans surrounding their island and that maritime leisure activities have never been popular.
He said he was once asked which channel or strait in the world he considers the most difficult to swim across. After a thoughtful pause he said that the Taiwan Strait poses the biggest challenge.
He saidd that he began to plan the cross-strait swim in September 2005, although concrete action did not start until last month after the cooperating party on the other side of the strait was finally determined -- the Exchanges Department of the Taiwan Affairs Office under China's State Council.
Twenty-five swimmers led by Wang will launch the first round of the swim between August and October this year, depending on the weather and prevailing currents.
The swimmers plan to swim from Tamsui, Taipei County or Nanliao, Hsinchu County to Pingtan in China's Fujian Province in a relay fashion, with each swimmer in the water for one hour.
Wang said that although the shortest distance between Taiwan and Fujian is 170km, it is more like 250km in terms of swimming.
The second round of the swim is scheduled to be launched between next April and May, also departing from Taiwan's Tamsui or Nanliao for Fujian's Pingtan, Wang said.
He said that for the third round, the 25 swimmers will depart from Pingtan for Tamsui or Nanliao, scheduled for between July and August of 2009.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS