Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday said the nation’s military installations on Taiping Island (太平島, Itu Aba Island) are vulnerable to intelligence gathering by a China-linked transport ship that has defied maritime regulations that require it to report its position when entering Taiwan’s near-shore waters.
Kuan told the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday that Hua Yun No. 12 entered Kaohsiung Harbor on Oct. 3, then headed up the coast to Greater Tainan’s Anping Port on Oct. 8.
“However, since Oct. 8, the ship had turned off its Automatic Identification System [AIS] to avoid reporting its location. This violates maritime regulations,” Kuan said, demanding that the government immediately expel the ship from the nation’s waters.
AIS is a tracking system used to identify and locate vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations and satellites.
“The transportation ministry did not track the ship’s passage and even allowed it to travel within the nation’s near-shore waters to break our maritime law at will,” she said.
“The government was unaware of the ship’s movement and unable to act. Its screws are all loose and it has fallen apart,” she added.
The ship was reportedly hired by East Pi Builds Co of Greater Kaohsiung, which secured a NT$3.37 billion (US$110 million) government project to build a wharf on Taiping Island.
Kuan initially raised the security issue on Oct. 10.
“At the time, transport ministry officials said Hua Yun No. 12 would leave for Russia on Oct. 11 and would not participate in the Taiping Island project,” she said. “This ship is still in Anping Port and has changed its departure to this afternoon. The port data log also records it as a Republic of China ship.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime and Port Bureau head Chi Wen-chong (祁文中) said that although the ship is Chinese-owned, it is contracted to a Hong Kong firm and registered in Cambodia.
“Therefore, we had problems with its proper identification. Turning off its AIS has violated our regulations, so we will blacklist this vessel in the future,” he said.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
RSS