Taiwan does not intend to test-fire its Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles in the US, Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) said during a legislative committee meeting yesterday.
The ministry has no plans to allocate funds for test-firing the missiles, he said in response to questions posed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) at a hearing of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Saying that Taiwan has not test-fired any of the US-made PAC-3 missiles, Lin said the military had asked him to convey to the US its wish to have the weapons tested after their arrival in Taiwan.
However, Washington responded that all countries that buy its PAC-3 missiles are required to use a site in the state of New Mexico if they wish to conduct test-firing, Lin said, adding that the US charges US$4 million for the test.
In response, Yen said that the Ministry of National Defense has to consider whether it is necessary to spend so much money for a missile test, given the size of the country’s defense budget.
At the moment, Taiwan has no plans to request a test of the PAC-3s in the US, he said.
Weapons that are saleable have a certain degree of reliability and the arms sales contracts usually include a record of the weapons’ tests, the minister said.
In January 2010, the US approved an arms sale to Taiwan that included 114 PAC-3 missiles.
Meanwhile, Yen said that the navy has taken delivery of its first locally designed stealth missile corvette, the Tuo Jiang (沱江), which is expected to enhance the nation’s anti-ship defenses capabilities.
He also said the government is still on track to acquire two Perry-class frigates, a sale that was recently approved by the US.
That plan has not changed, he said when asked by Lin if the acquisition of the Perry-class frigates from the US would squeeze Taiwan’s budget for more locally made 500-tonne corvettes.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,