The Coast Guard Administration is to hold two live-fire exercises to test an indigenous anti-armor rocket on the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea next month.
The exercises are scheduled from 8am to 9am on Sept. 5 and 12, the agency said in a notice to operators of aircraft and ships in the area.
The exercises would affect an area of 8 nautical miles (14.8km) around the launch site and the rockets would reach heights of up to 3.7km, it said.
Photo: Lo Tien-pin, Taipei Times
The notice did not specify what kind of weapons would be tested, saying only that the exercises are part of annual drills.
However, the Central News Agency reported that locally developed Kestrel anti-armor rockets would be launched on both dates.
The rocket, developed by the military’s top research unit, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, is an individual shoulder-launched weapon for anti-armor and concrete penetration.
With an effective range of 400m, the launcher is made from fiber-reinforced plastic and features an optical sight and a mounting for a night vision scope.
The military previously said that it would soon deploy 292 Kestrel rockets at two Taiwan-controlled sites in the South China Sea in reaction to increasing Chinese presence in the region.
The Pratas Islands, which are almost 450km southwest of Kaohsiung, are one of two territories controlled by Taiwan in the South China Sea. The other is Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), which is about 1,500km southwest of Kaohsiung. Marine Corps-trained coast guard personnel are stationed on both territories.
However, the Ministry of National Defense last year said that it would temporarily post military personnel on the Pratas Islands in reaction to reports that the Chinese military was planning to conduct drills in the area.
The ministry did not elaborate on the number of troops it would deploy, their planned arrival date or how long they would stay.
Taiwan, Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam all claim part of the South China Sea as their territory.
PEACE AT LAST? UN experts had warned of threats and attacks ahead of the voting, but after a turbulent period, Bangladesh has seemingly reacted to the result with calm The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday celebrated a landslide victory in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with party leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister. Bangladesh Election Commission figures showed that the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, compared with 77 for the Islamist-led Jamaat-e-Islami alliance. The US embassy congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory,” while India praised Rahman’s “decisive win” in a significant step after recent rocky relations with Bangladesh. China and Pakistan, which grew closer to Bangladesh since the uprising and the souring of ties with India, where ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina
FAST-TRACK: The deal is to be sent to the legislature, but time is of the essence, as Trump had raised tariffs on Seoul when it failed to quickly ratify a similar pact Taiwan and the US on Thursday signed a trade agreement that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and provides preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural exports, including cars, and beef and pork products. The Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade confirms a 15 percent US tariff for Taiwanese goods, and grants Taiwanese semiconductors and related products the most-favorable-treatment under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the Executive Yuan said. In addition, 2,072 items — representing nearly 20 percent of Taiwan’s total exports to the US — would be exempt from additional tariffs and be subject only to
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday approved a special pardon exempting a woman in her 80s convicted of killing her disabled son from imprisonment. After carefully reviewing the case, Lai pardoned Lin Liu Lung-tzu (林劉龍子) from the prison sentence while acknowledging her conviction, citing the extreme circumstances she faced, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. Under Article 3 of the Amnesty Act (赦免法), the two kinds of pardons are exempting an offender from the execution of a punishment or declaring the punishment to be invalid. Kuo said Lin Liu had spent more than 50 years caring for her son, before
HOLIDAY RUSH: Airport passenger volume is expected to reach a new high, while southbound road traffic would likely peak from Tuesday As Lunar New Year travelers flock overseas, passenger traffic at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is expected to shatter records, as Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC, 桃園國際機場), Taiwan’s largest aviation hub operator, projected yesterday’s passenger volume to climb to 167,000. The figure comes after a record single-day high of 161,000 passengers on Thursday, and would surpass the previous pre-COVID-19 pandemic Lunar New Year peak of 166,000 passengers in 2019, TIAC said. Long lines could be seen forming as early as 7am yesterday, filling Terminal 1 of the airport almost to capacity, yet security checks took only 10 to 15 minutes. TIAC urged
RSS