Taiwan’s representative office in Chile yesterday extended the nation’s congratulation and admiration to Chile and the 33 miners who were rescued from a collapsed mine on Thursday morning after being trapped for a record 69 days more than 600m below the earth’s surface.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release that the office had sent a letter of congratulation to Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno and would present a letter of congratulation as well as a silver plate to each of the 33 miners on behalf of the Taiwanese government and its people.
The rescue operation, which is likely the most difficult of its kind in human history, led by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who mobilized national resources, deserved high appraisal and admiration because it demonstrated team spirit and efficiency and resulted in a complete success, the statement said.
Taiwanese people also admired the willpower, the brave deeds, the glory and kindness of human nature the Chilean miners showed during their time underground, the statement said.
Meanwhile, it also came to the attention of local media that two manufactured in Taiwan pieces of electronic equipment also played a part in the successful rescue.
Infrared Internet cameras and media converters, manufactured and distributed by Taipei-based Planet Technology Corp, had been lowered down the tiny boreholes drilled into a collapsed gold and copper mine in Chile to allow the trapped miners to communicate with the world above.
This enabled the miners underground and mining officials and rescue workers above ground to prepare for and plan the details of the rescue.
“It was indeed a [difficult] task to enable the cameras and converters to work under a humid, hot, and dark environment that was 624m underground,” a representative for the company said.
Infrared Internet cameras and media converters are usually used by industrial companies for their waterproof and dust-repellent properties.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods