A three-day live-fire exercise is to be conducted from 8am to 9pm daily on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) starting on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration’s first nighttime live-fire drill under President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the administration said on Thursday.
Itu Aba, the largest naturally occurring island in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), has been administered by Taiwan since 1956 and is also claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The administration said that Itu Aba is threatened by nearby land reclamation work being carried out by China and Vietnam, citing Vietnam’s stationing of a company of troops on Sandy Cay (Dunqian Cay, 敦謙沙洲) about 7 nautical miles (13km) east of Itu Aba.
Chinese-held Hughes Reef (Dongmen Reef, 東門礁), Johnson South Reef (Chigua Reef, 赤瓜礁) and Gaven Reef (Nansyun Reef, 南薰礁), all within 70km of Itu Aba, are also threats due to land reclamation and the establishment of military facilities, the administration said.
The administration marked off areas within 5 nautical miles of Itu Aba as dangerous during the exercise.
Since the government’s decision in 1999 to withdraw marines from the island base, its defenses have been manned by the coast guard, with training by the marines.
Live-fire exercises are routinely carried out every season, the administration said, adding that as there is no heavy artillery on the island, its defense relies on 120mm, 81mm and 40mm mortars, as well as 20mm machine guns.
Separately, the Fisheries Agency announced that there would be live-fire exercises around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) from May 1 to May 2, which are to be carried out from 8am to 9pm, with an expected danger zone of up to 8 nautical miles.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
A 23-year-old Taichung man vowed to drink more water after his heavy consumption of sugary tea landed him in hospital with a kidney infection and sepsis. The man, surnamed Lin (林), used to drink two cups of half-sugar oolong tea while working at a food stall, where he often had to wait a long time before urinating. Lin developed kidney stones and noticed blood in his urine, but ignored the issue after taking medication for three days. A month later, he went to the emergency room after experiencing a recurring fever and was diagnosed with a kidney infection that led to sepsis, landing
RSS