Putin signs annexation of Ukrainian regions

‘INSANE ASYLUM’: The annexation laws are not worth the paper they are written on, a Kyiv official said, while the EU announced a new round of sanctions against Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed laws formally absorbing four Ukrainian regions into Russia, even as its military struggles to control the territory that was illegally annexed. The documents finalizing the annexation, carried out in defiance of international law, were published on a Russian government Web site yesterday morning. Earlier this week, both houses of the Russian parliament ratified treaties making the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. That followed Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” in the four regions, which Ukraine and the West have rejected as a sham. The EU has agreed a new round of sanctions against Russia after Moscow’s annexation of the regions, the Czech presidency of the bloc said yesterday. The latest package — the eighth since Russia’s invasion in February — is going through a final approval procedure which, if no objections emerge, would be published and come into effect today, the Czech EU ambassador said on Twitter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded to the annexation by announcing a fast-track application to join NATO and formally ruling out talks with Russia. Zelenskiy’s decree, released on Tuesday, declares that holding negotiations with Putin has become impossible after his decision to take over the four regions of Ukraine. The head of Zelenskiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on his Telegram channel shortly after Putin signed the annexation that “the worthless decisions of the terrorist country are not worth the paper they are signed on.” “A collective insane asylum can continue to live in a fictional world,” he added. On the ground, Moscow’s war in Ukraine has entered a new, more dangerous phase. Russia faces mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more land in the east and south — the very regions Moscow has pushed to annex. The borders of the territories Russia is claiming still remain unclear, but the Kremlin has vowed to defend Russia’s

Two Americans and a Dane win chemistry Nobel

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was yesterday awarded to a trio of chemists from the US and Denmark who laid the foundation for a more functional form of chemistry. Americans Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless, together with Denmark’s Morten Meldal, were honored “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry,” the jury said. The award marks the second Nobel for 81-year-old Sharpless, who won the chemistry Nobel in 2001. Only four other people have achieved the feat, including Polish-born Frenchwoman Marie Curie. Click chemistry “is an elegant and efficient chemical reaction that is now in widespread use,” the jury said in a statement. “Among many other uses, it is utilized in the development of pharmaceuticals, for mapping DNA and creating materials that are more fit for purpose,” it added. “This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple,” Johan Aqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in the statement. The trio are to share the Nobel award sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (US$911,504) and would receive the prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament. Sharpless, a professor at Scripps Research in California, “started the ball rolling” and “coined the concept of click chemistry” in about 2000, the jury said. “Shortly afterward, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless — independently of each other — presented what is now the crown jewel of click chemistry: the copper catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition,” the jury said. Meldal, 68, is a professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. Bertozzi, who is a professor at Stanford University in the US, then took it to “a new level.” “She developed click reactions that work inside living organisms. Her

North Korea fires missile over Japan

‘IRRESPONSIBLE’: Condemning the weapons test, Taiwan said that Pyongyang’s action breached UN Security Council regulations and undermines regional peace and stability

North Korea yesterday conducted its longest-ever weapons test — a nuclear-capable ballistic missile that flew over Japan and could reach the US Pacific territory of Guam and beyond, forcing the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and halt trains. The South Korean and US militaries responded by launching fighter jets that fired weapons at a target off South Korea’s west coast in a show of strength against North Korea. In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that Taiwan is concerned by and strongly condemns “yet another irresponsible action” by North Korea, which contravenes UN Security Council prohibitions and undermines regional peace and stability. Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) called Japan’s top envoy to Taiwan Hiroyasu Izumi early yesterday to convey the government’s and public’s support for Tokyo, Ou said. As an important member of the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan is willing to work with the international community on related measures and cooperate with like-minded countries to ensure regional peace and security, including on the Korean Peninsula, Ou said. The missile launch was North Korea’s most provocative weapons demonstration this year, as it pushes to develop a fully fledged nuclear arsenal capable of threatening the US mainland and its allies with the goal of wresting concessions from those countries, some experts say. Condemning the North’s “dangerous and reckless” action to launch what it described as a “long-range ballistic missile” over Japan, US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement: “The United States will continue its efforts to limit [North Korea’s] ability to advance its prohibited ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs, including with allies and UN partners.” South Korea and Japan earlier said the missile had an intermediate or longer range. The launch is the fifth round of weapons tests by North Korea in the past 10

Official calls for global efforts to contain China

DEFENSE BUILDUP: Taipei aims to bolster information sharing with allies, build up its war reserves and protect key infrastructure, a vice defense minister said

Deputy Minister of National Defense Wang Shin-lung (王信龍) on Monday called for global efforts to contain Chinese security threats, including through joint military exercises, a strategic communication platform and the sharing of drone signals. In his keynote address at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, Wang, who is leading a delegation of defense officials to the annual event in Richmond, Virginia, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine would likely significantly decrease Moscow’s security threat to the region. However, China has continued its expansion and is bound to seriously affect regional and global security, Wang said. He called on a global democratic alliance to remain on high alert to China’s rise and cooperate in strategically containing the expansion of the Chinese Communist Party. To beef up Taiwan’s defenses, Wang proposed three major strategies: strengthening information sharing with allies, building up war reserves and better protecting key communications infrastructure. In terms of military cooperation with the US, Wang said that Taipei hopes to establish an “intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance” sharing mechanism with Washington and enhance routine high-level official dialogue. Following his speech, Wang told Taiwanese reporters that his delegation had “productive” meetings with the US side during the conference held from Saturday to yesterday. “In the closed-door meetings, we have had candid exchanges concerning the obstacles and possible risks we are facing in terms of US arms sales, while the US side pledged it would do its best in helping Taiwan to solve these problems,” Wang said. He also said Taipei and Washington have reached a consensus concerning the Taiwanese military’s buildup of its asymmetric warfare capability. The most important task at hand for Taiwan is to make the most of every dollar it spends on its defense needs, he said. “How we make the best use of our limited defense budget in a timely fashion to boost Taiwan’s defense capabilities in the coming

Taiwan chip production value to expand 15.8%: MIC

The production value of the local semiconductor industry is to grow 15.8 percent this year to NT$4.3 trillion (US$135.4 billion), following robust growth of 26.8 percent last year, the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) projected yesterday. The institute attributed the growth in output to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) sharp production growth, which helped cushion the impact of an industrial slump due to shrinking demand for consumer electronics. Taiwan’s growth this year would outpace the global semiconductor industry’s forecast annual expansion of 8.9 percent after an increase of 26.2 percent the previous year amid a drastic revision to projected shipments of notebook computers, smartphones and TVs, it said. MIC cut its forecast for global notebook computer shipments this year by 10.76 percent to 199 million units. Sagging demand for consumer electronics was deeply felt by local chip designers and manufacturers, MIC analyst Cynthia Yang (楊可歆) told an online forum. Taiwan’s chip designers in the second quarter reported the first annual decline in production value in about two years — a 13.3 percent drop. The best-case scenario for local chip designers is to report a flat production value this year compared with last year, as sluggish demand is compounding problems with high inventories, Yang said. Memorychip makers would see a quarterly price decline of between 10 and 15 percent each quarter in the second half of this year due to oversupply, she said. Increasing supply of NOR flash memory chips from China could undermine price quotes for this type of memory chips, she added. However, local foundries, led by TSMC, would lend support to the nation’s chip manufacturing industry, with production value expanding 26.5 percent year-on-year last quarter and 20.7 percent this quarter, although the growth is weaker than last year due to dwindling demand for 8-inch wafers in light of weak consumer electronics sales, MIC

By Lisa Wang

Taiwan training ‘red team’ to counter hackers

Taiwan should step up efforts to prevent hackers and cyberattacks through cultivation of a “red team” of testers, Minister of Digital Development Audrey Tang (唐鳳) said at the legislature in Taipei yesterday. During US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August, many government agencies and private Web sites reported distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, while many convenience stores and infrastructure elements were hacked. Saying that Taiwanese abhor cybercrime, independent Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) asked the ministry whether it is confident about ensuring the nation’s information security. Tang said that when the attacks were reported during Pelosi’s visit, the government distributed the data on the systems that had been attacked to other computers with novel content dissemination technologies to counter the attacks. Departments in charge and system integrators learned from the experience how to rebuild the system using advanced technologies to protect them from further attacks, she said. “Learning from the attacks is called tenacity,” she added. Asked whether the ministry would proactively investigate and seize problematic information security products purchased from China by government agencies and the private sector, Tang said that it is a usual task carried out by the ministry and promised to focus more on preventing potential attacks. Taiwan should develop its own “red team power” by ordering start-ups and information security companies to conduct regular health checks of their information security mechanisms, she said. By “red team power,” she referred to the term “red team assessment” in information security — carrying out simulated attacks on businesses to test the security of their systems. Random attacks would be launched at certain business targets during a designated period to test for information security loopholes and help businesses better protect their systems, she said.

By Chen Cheng-yu and Liu Tzu-hsuan

Trio share Nobel prize for work on quantum science

Three scientists yesterday jointly won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on quantum information science that has significant applications, for example in the field of encryption. Alain Aspect of France, John Clauser of the US and Anton Zeilinger of Austria were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way that particles known as photons can be linked, or “entangled,” with each other even when they are separated by large distances. “Quantum information science is a vibrant and rapidly developing field,” Nobel Committee member Eva Olsson said. “It has broad and potential implications in areas such as secure information transfer, quantum computing and sensing technology.” “Its origin can be traced to that of quantum mechanics,” she said. “Its predictions have opened doors to another world, and it has also shaken the very foundations of how we interpret measurements.” Speaking by phone to a news conference after the announcement, Zeilinger said he was “still kind of shocked” at hearing he had received the award. “But it’s a very positive shock,” said Zeilinger, 77, who is based at the University of Vienna. Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger have figured in Nobel speculation for more than a decade. In 2010, they won the Wolf Prize in Israel, seen as a possible precursor to the Nobel. While physicists often tackle problems that appear at first glance to be far removed from everyday concerns — tiny particles and the vast mysteries of space and time — their research provides the foundations for many practical applications of science. The Nobel Committee said Clauser, 79, developed quantum theories first put forward in the 1960s into to a practical experiment. Aspect, 75, was able to close a loophole in those theories, while Zeilinger demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation that effectively allows information to be transmitted over distances. “Using entanglement

China unlikely to invade Taiwan soon: US’ Austin

NO DIALOGUE: The US defense chief said he had spoken to his Chinese counterpart on the phone and in person, but the communication channel is ‘not open’ right now

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Sunday said that he sees no imminent invasion of Taiwan by China, but said Beijing was trying to establish a “new normal” with its military activities around the nation. A visit to Taiwan in early August by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged China, which subsequently intensified military drills around the nation. Those have continued, although on a much reduced scale. “I don’t see an imminent invasion,” Austin said in an interview on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS that was recorded on Friday. “What we do see is China moving to establish what we would call a new normal. Increased activity — we saw a number of center-line crossings of the Taiwan Strait by their aircraft. That number has increased over time. We’ve seen more activity with their surface vessels and waters in and around Taiwan,” he said. The US and its allies have responded to the drills by continuing to sail through the region. A US Navy warship and a Canadian frigate made a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait on Sept. 20. The US would continue to work with its allies and partners “to ensure that we maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Austin said in the interview. The US would help Taiwan develop the capability to defend itself from a Chinese invasion, he added, stopping short of US President Joe Biden’s vow to send troops to the nation. “We’re committed to helping Taiwan develop the capability to defend itself,” Austin said. Washington has historically maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene militarily if Taiwan were attacked by China. Asked in an interview with CBS last month whether US troops would defend Taiwan, Biden said “yes,” if it were “an unprecedented attack.” Asked by CNN host Fareed Zakaria whether the US military was preparing to send

German MP lauds Taiwan’s democratic progress

Taiwan should be proud of its democratic development, Klaus-Peter Willsch, chair of the German-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group, said at a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office yesterday. Willsch is leading a delegation of cross-party parliamentarians, the first of its kind to visit Taiwan since the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019. Willsch said that he first met Tsai in Berlin in 2011, when she was the chair of the then-opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was Germany’s ruling party. Now the CDU is an opposition party while Tsai has become the president of Taiwan and the DPP is the ruling party, said Willsch, who has headed the friendship group since 2010. “This is the true meaning of democracy and Taiwanese people should be proud of Taiwan’s democratic development,” he said. The lawmaker lauded Taiwan for playing a major role in the world’s semiconductor industry. “The world’s industries will face serious problems without Taiwan’s semiconductors,” he said. He said that a country near Germany is now bravely defending its democracy amid military assault launched by another country, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The German Federal Parliament has over the years passed a series of resolutions and papers to pledge its support for Taiwan should it come under attack from China, he said. Tsai thanked Germany, which holds the G7’s rotating presidency this year, for overseeing the issuance of joint statements by G7 leaders and foreign ministers showing concern for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. At the World Health Assembly in May, Germany, for the first time, expressed its clear support for Taiwan’s participation as an observer, she said. Taiwan and Germany share common values such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and enjoy close cooperation in various fields, she added. Amid the expansion of authoritarian

Sweden’s Svante Paabo wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

Swedish scientist Svante Paabo yesterday won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries on human evolution that provided key insights into our immune system and what makes us unique compared with our extinct cousins, the award’s panel said. Paabo has spearheaded the development of new techniques that allowed researchers to compare the genome of modern humans and that of other hominins — the Neanderthals and Denisovans. While Neanderthal bones were first discovered in the mid-19th century, only by unlocking their DNA have scientists been able to fully understand the links between species. This included the time when modern humans and Neanderthals diverged as a species, determined to be about 800,000 years ago, Nobel Committee chair Anna Wedell said. “Paabo and his team also surprisingly found that gene flow had occurred from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens, demonstrating that they had children together during periods of co-existence,” she said. This transfer of genes between hominin species affects how the immune system of modern humans reacts to infections, such as the coronavirus. About 1 to 2 percent of people outside Africa have Neanderthal genes. “Svante Paabo has discovered the genetic make up of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and the Denison hominins,” Nils-Goran Larsson, a Nobel Assembly member, said after the announcement. “And the small differences between these extinct human forms and us as humans today will provide important insight into our body functions and how our brain has developed and so forth.” Paabo, 67, performed his prizewinning studies in Germany at the University of Munich and at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Paabo is the son of Sune Bergstrom, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982. It is the eighth time that the son or daughter of a Nobel laureate also won a Nobel Prize, the Nobel Foundation said. Scientists in the

UK scraps tax cut for wealthy

STIMULUS PACKAGE? The deeply unpopular proposed ￡45 billion in tax cuts had sent the pound tumbling to a record low against the greenback

The British government yesterday dropped plans to cut income tax for top earners, part of a package of unfunded cuts unveiled only days ago that sparked turmoil on financial markets and sent the pound to record lows. In a dramatic about-face, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng abandoned plans to scrap the top 45 percent rate of income tax paid on earnings above ￡150,000 (US$168,398) a year. He and British Prime Minister Liz Truss have spent the last 10 days defending the cut in the face of market mayhem and increasing alarm among the governing Conservative Party. “We get it, and we have listened,” Kwarteng said in a statement. “It is clear that the abolition of the 45p tax rate has become a distraction from our overriding mission to tackle the challenges facing our country,” he said. The U-turn came after a growing number of Conservative lawmakers, including former ministers with broad influence, turned on the government’s tax plans. “I can’t support the 45p tax removal when nurses are struggling to pay their bills,” Conservative MP Maria Caulfield said. It also came hours after the Conservatives released advance extracts of a speech Kwarteng was due to give later yesterday at the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, England. He had been due to say: “We must stay the course. I am confident our plan is the right one.” Truss on Sunday defended the measures, but said she could have “done a better job laying the ground” for the announcements. She also said the decision to abolish the top tax rate had been taken by Kwarteng alone. Truss’ spokesman yesterday said the prime minister still had confidence in her embattled Treasury head. Truss took office less than a month ago, promising to radically reshape Britain’s economy to end years of sluggish growth. However, the government’s announcement of a stimulus

Man told to pay NT$600 for refilling pot of tea eggs

The Kaohsiung District Court has ordered a man to pay a convenience store NT$600 (US$18.83) in compensation for using his own mug to refill a pot of tea eggs, ruling against the store manager’s NT$1 million claim. In May, during the peak of a domestic COVID-19 surge, a man surnamed Lee (李) added water from his mug to a pot of tea eggs after seeing it was nearly dry. A clerk stopped Lee, then discarded all 60 eggs in the pot, worth an estimated NT$600, after consulting with the manager, it said. The manager sued Lee, demanding NT$1 million for damage to the store’s reputation, plus NT$600 for the cost of the eggs. As many people witnessed the incident, it might create lasting doubts about the store’s cleanliness, the manager said in the lawsuit. Lee said that the suit was unjust, as he had admitted fault to the store clerk immediately after the incident. The court on Tuesday last week ruled that Lee only needed to pay NT$600 in compensation, as no one was harmed. The store’s reputation was also not damaged, as the people present in the store witnessed the clerk deal with the incident in an appropriate manner, the court ruled. The manager on Sunday said the store has a zero-tolerance policy toward threats to food safety. If a customer needs assistance, they should ask a store clerk for help, the manager said. A customer “trying to fix” something in the store is “in defiance of the law,” they added. As Lee added the water in full view of other customers, the incident was not at all similar to the 2005 Bullwild (蠻牛) energy drink poisoning, the court said. In that case, 11 energy drinks laced with cyanide were placed on shelves in 11 convenience stores, killing one person and sickening three. Wang Chin-chan (王進展) admitted the crime, saying it

By Huang Liang-chieh and Kayleigh Madjar

US, Australia, Japan boost military ties

CHINESE THREAT: The three countries’ defense ministers condemned Beijing for launching ballistic missiles during huge military drills around Taiwan in August

The defense ministers of Australia, Japan and the US on Saturday agreed to advance military cooperation in the face of China’s growing ambitions. “We are deeply concerned by China’s increasingly aggressive and bullying behavior in the Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere in the region,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said as he welcomed his counterparts from Australia and Japan to the US military headquarters for the Pacific region in Hawaii. “Our interest lies in the upholding of the global rules-based order. But we see that order under pressure in the Indo-Pacific as well, as China is seeking to shape the world around it in a way that we’ve not seen before,” Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said. The Japan Times yesterday quoted Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada as saying during the talks that “today, the international community is faced with these severe security environments due to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, China’s unilateral change of status by force in the South and East China seas, and the remarkable development of North Korea’s nuclear and missile-related technologies, among others.” “The three ministers ‘strongly condemned’ China’s ballistic missile launches during massive military exercises surrounding Taiwan” following a visit made by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei at the beginning of August, the report quoted the Japanese Ministry of Defense as saying. “On the rising tensions over self-ruled Taipei, the three also reiterated the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and agreed to encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues,” the ministry was quoted as saying. The three ministers “pledged to ‘promote concrete and practical initiatives to ensure the security of the Indo-Pacific region’ and vowed to ‘continue to advance trilateral cooperation,’ including expanded and strengthened trilateral training and the promotion of defense equipment and technology cooperation ‘with the view to

Ukraine claims full control of key logistics hub

Ukraine yesterday claimed full control of the eastern logistics hub of Lyman, Kyiv’s most significant battlefield gain in weeks, providing a potential staging post for further attacks to the east while heaping further pressure on the Kremlin. The stinging setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin came after he proclaimed the annexation of four regions covering nearly one-fifth of Ukraine on Friday, an area that includes Lyman. Kyiv and the West have condemned the proclamation as an “illegitimate farce.” “As of 12:30 [9:30am GMT], Lyman is fully cleared,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a short video clip on his Telegram channel. “Thank you to our troops ... Glory to Ukraine.” The Russian Ministry of Defence on Saturday said that it was pulling troops out of the area “in connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement.” It did not mention the city in its daily update on fighting in Ukraine yesterday, although it said Russian forces had destroyed seven artillery and missile depots in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Donetsk. Russian forces captured Lyman from Ukraine in May and had used it as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region. Losing it is Russia’s largest battlefield loss since Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month. Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region that neighbors Donetsk, said control over Lyman could prove a “key factor” in helping Ukraine reclaim lost territory in his region, whose full capture Moscow announced in early July after weeks of grinding advances. The British Ministry of Defence described Lyman as operationally important given that it commands a key road crossing over the Siverskyi Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses. Russia likely experienced heavy casualties during the withdrawal, the ministry said in a statement.

NSPO boss predicts domestic rocket launch by 2026

BENEFICIAL: Work is to begin next year on a project that will enable Taiwan to test domestically produced components for the space industry, Wu Jong-shinn said

Taiwan could launch a domestically built rocket into space as soon as 2026, if the Legislative Yuan approves funding for the Siraya Rocket Plan project, National Space Organization (NSPO) Director-General Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) said. Researchers would next year start work on the project, which was named after the indigenous Siraya people, Wu said on Friday. If successful, it would be the first rocket to be designed, built and launched entirely in Taiwan — a milestone for the nation’s emerging space industry, he said. The NSPO is next year to be reorganized into a legal entity, and renamed the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), he said, adding that Siraya would be the agency’s first project. “The project will allow us to test domestically designed and built components for the space industry,” he said. Under the Space Development Act (太空發展法), the NSPO — and later, TASA — is responsible for construction of a national rocket launch site, he said. The launch site in Syuhai Village (旭海) in Pingtung County’s Mudan Township (牡丹), which the NSPO has used in the past, is suitable for smaller launches, but not for large projects such as Siraya, he said. A bigger site would be built in either Pingtung County or Taitung County, he said, adding that a selection committee would choose the site based on criteria drafted by the NSPO. Some of the criteria include transportation options to the site, and whether there are people living within a 2km radius, he said. “The Siraya rocket project will involve roughly three to four years of planning, which is significantly less time than South Korea’s Nuri rocket took,” he said. “Work started on Nuri in 2010, and it did not launch until October last year.” Wu said he also expects Siraya to be cheaper than the Nuri project, which cost US$1.7 billion, including the spaceport.

By Yang Yuan-ting and William Hetherington

German parliamentarians arrive in Taiwan

The first parliamentary delegation from Germany to visit Taiwan since the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019 arrived in Taoyuan yesterday morning, with a delegation member saying the trip was meant to “show support to Taiwan.” Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yu welcomed the delegation led by German-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group Chairman Klaus-Peter Willsch when they arrived at Taoyuan International Airport at about 7am. Willsch and three of the group’s deputies, German lawmakers Katrin Budde, Till Steffen and Rainer Kraft, as well as Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), stopped briefly to take photographs before leaving the airport without speaking to the press. The rest of the seven-member parliamentary delegation were scheduled to arrive in Taiwan later last night or today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Before the visit to Taiwan, German public broadcaster ARD asked Willsch to comment on US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 19-hour trip to Taipei on Aug. 2 and 3. He said that a peaceful visit to a fellow democratic country has never been a problem. The problem was an overly nervous authoritarian state that overreacts to such visits by firing missiles and using military coercion, Willsch said, referring to Beijing’s launch of live-fire military drills in six maritime zones encircling Taiwan from Aug. 4 to 7. Budde said during the same ARD interview that it is compulsory for fellow democratic countries to show support for Taiwan when it is facing a military threat from China. The delegates include five deputy chairs of the parliamentary friendship group, which consists of parliamentarians from six different political parties, Shieh said. “The cross-party delegation means to show their unified support for Taiwan because Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy,” Shieh wrote on Facebook on Saturday. Shieh also said that another German parliamentary group would be visiting Taiwan in three weeks. During their five-day visit,

At least 125 dead in Indonesia soccer stadium stampede

At least 125 people died at an Indonesian soccer stadium when thousands of angry home supporters invaded the pitch and police responded with tear gas that triggered a stampede, authorities said yesterday. The tragedy on Saturday night in the city of Malang, which also left 180 injured, was one of the world’s deadliest sporting stadium disasters. Arema supporters stormed the pitch at the Kanjuruhan Stadium after their team lost 3-2 to the visiting team, bitter rivals Persebaya Surabaya. Police, who described the unrest as “riots,” said they tried to force supporters to return to the stands and fired tear gas after two officers were killed. Many of the victims were trampled or choked to death, police said. At least 125 people died, East Java Vice Governor Emil Dardak told broadcaster Metro TV yesterday evening, significantly lowering officials’ earlier death toll of 174 because of double counting. Citing data collected by police from 10 hospitals, he said that “124 have been identified and one has not. Some names were recorded twice because they had been referred to another hospital and were written down again.” Survivors described panicking spectators in a packed crowd as tear gas rained down on them. “Officers fired tear gas, and automatically people were rushing to come out, pushing each other and it caused many victims,” said 43-year-old spectator Doni, who declined to give his last name. “Nothing was happening, there was no riot. I don’t know what the issue was, they suddenly fired tear gas,” he said. “That’s what shocked me, didn’t they think about kids, women?” Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation into the tragedy, a safety review into all soccer matches and directed the country’s soccer association to suspend all matches until “security improvements” were completed. “I deeply regret this tragedy and I hope this football tragedy will be the last in our