Minister of National Defense Lee Tien-yu (
"I have never heard of such a plan," Lee said. "Tomahawk cruise missiles are fantastic. But, they [US government] never gave us such a message and we are not planning on it, either."
Lee's remarks came in response to a story in yesterday's Chinese-language China Times.
The alleged US sale is purported to be aimed at forcing Taiwan to abandon the NT$34.6 billion (US$1.06 billion) project to develop and mass produce Hsiung Feng-2E missiles, the daily claimed.
The Hsiung Feng-2E missile was not showcased during the military display on Double Ten National Day on Oct. 10 because, according to the ministry, it is still in the development stage.
During questioning from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (
He added sarcastically that he was "grateful" that a certain media outlet has "made such an excellent arrangement" for Taiwan's military to beef up its defense capability.
Meanwhile, a military official yesterday confirmed that the ministry has researched and developed graphite bombs but said it had never considered mass production of such a weapon.
"We did carry out some research and development work on graphite bombs. We did it because we wanted to realize how much damage it would cause if our enemy launched an attack. We do not have a production line for such weapons," said Vice Admiral Wu Wei-rong (
Wu made the comments during yesterday morning's legislative National Defense Committee.
(KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (
The newspaper reported on Sunday that Taiwan was developing a non-lethal graphite bomb designed to disable China's power supplies.
It said that the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology -- the nation's top arms research unit -- will begin developing the submunitions at a cost of up to NT$500 million (US$15.34 million), starting next year.
The bombs work by sprinkling a cloud of chemically treated carbon fibers over power supplies, causing them to short-circuit, but without killing people.
Should war break out, the so-called "blackout bomb" would be carried by Hsiung Feng II-E cruise missiles to paralyze power grids in China's southeastern coastal cities.
Wu said these submunitions were used for the first time in May 1999 as part of Operation Allied Force strikes against Serbia. Following these attacks, lights went out over 70 percent of the country.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching