TRANSPORTATION
Kaohsiung plans approved
The National Development Council on Monday approved an extension to the Kaohsiung MRT to be built in two stages, the Kaohsiung City Government said. In the first stage, the city’s Red Line is to be extended to Gangshan Railway Station, with work expected to be completed by 2020. The city government has budgeted NT$3.06 billion (US$96.2 million) for the 1.46km section, of which NT$1.54 billion is to be provided by the central government. In the second stage, the line will be extended through Lujhu District (路竹), terminating at Dahu Station in Hunei District (湖內), with NT$27.28 billion allocated, including NT$16.15 billion from the central government. Seven stations are to be built along the 11.75km extension to Dahu, serving a population of about 350,000. Construction of the second stage is to be finished by 2027, the city government said.
SEISMOLOGY
Twin quakes reported
Two magnitude 4.1 earthquakes struck off the east coast in a span of six minutes yesterday afternoon, the Central Weather Bureau said. No injuries or damage were immediately reported. The first quake occurred at 2:33pm. Its hypocenter was 29.8km east of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 6.4km, the bureau’s seismological data showed. The quake’s intensity, which gauges the effects of a temblor, was highest in Yilan County and New Taipei City, where it measured 2 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale. It was felt at an intensity of 1 in Keelung, Taipei and Taoyuan, as well as in Hualien County, the bureau said. The second quake struck at 2:39pm, with its epicenter near the previous earthquake, 28.3km east of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 9.6km, bureau data showed. It was felt at an intensity of 2 in New Taipei and 1 in Yilan, the bureau said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift