The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said US-based Raytheon Corp had requested that the air force pay an extra US$200 million for the procurement of a long-range early warning radar system.
During a press conference, ministry spokesman Lo Shao-ho (羅紹和) confirmed a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) saying the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) in March or April had been informed by Raytheon of the US$200 million increase and that this was the third time Raytheon wanted to increase the price.
“The ministry protested to -Raytheon several times about those requests through various channels and has even asked the US government to pressure the arms company,” Lo said.
The national defense budget must be used for necessary defense items and the ministry will not waste that money, he said.
UDN said the long-range early radar system was scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, but that Raytheon informed the air force that the project would be delayed.
The newspaper said the extra US$200 million would be used to connect C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and -reconnaissance) systems with PAC-3 missile batteries and implement C4ISR protection measures.
The price of the radar system had previously been increased by a total of NT$6.2 billion (US$215 million) in 2008 and last year, UDN said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said yesterday that the air force had sent more than 60 letters to the Pentagon to express its anger at the “unreasonable” extra payment, adding that the air force would not accept it.
Lin said the US Air Force, aware of Taiwan’s discontent, had put pressure on Raytheon and that some senior officials at Raytheon in charge of the case had been dismissed.
The ROCAF and Raytheon negotiated the matter in Taipei last month, Lin said, adding that both sides discussed the extra charges.
The ROCAF was of the view that more than half of the items were unreasonably priced and should be canceled.
Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) in October told the legislature that the military would be able to track Chinese missiles or satellite rockets in motion after the nation’s NT$30 billion long-range early-warning radar system was completed, while the military said it would allow them to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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