The families of the seven missing Taiwanese businessmen in Madagascar called off the aerial search effort yesterday after one Malagasy search crew member died and another was injured on duty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The families are offering a NT$100,000 (US$3,200) reward for locals who find any of the men alive and NT$20,000 if any are found dead. The figure is an astronomical amount for a country where the average daily income is less than US$0.40.
The ministry did not say who would pay the bills of the search mission that reportedly cost up to several thousand US dollars each hour and lasted nearly six days.
MOFA Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said the families of the victims had agreed to call off the aerial search mission because of persistent inclement weather.
A search team commissioned by Madagascar would continue until Antananarivo decided to terminate the efforts, Chen said, adding that MOFA has expressed condolences to the families of the Malagasy men who died and were injured on duty.
The two life vests found in the ocean by a fishing boat would be sent to Antananarivo to be verified if they were worn by any of missing men prior to their disappearance, Chen said, adding that the two representatives from the family and the two MOFA personnel would also leave St. Marie, the island where the boat apparently capsized last Friday.
The seven missing Taiwanese businessmen were on a commercial fishing grounds inspection trip along with one other Taiwanese national, Liu Shou-chih (劉守智), and a Chinese businessman, Li Bo (李波).
The bodies of Liu and Li were retrieved on Monday about 18km away from where the fishing boat apparently capsized. One Malagasy technician and a cook were successfully rescued but MOFA has been barred from questioning them.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS