Air Force General Headquarters issued a press statement yesterday denying a media report which said the US was going to deliver 200 air-to-air missiles to Taiwan earlier than scheduled because of escalating tensions with China.
The press release said the delivery of the 200 AIM-120 missiles, which the US sold Taiwan two years ago, would go as originally scheduled, while declining to specify the timing of the delivery.
"The acquisition of the US mid-range air-to-air missiles has been proceeding according to plan,'' according to the statement.
The air force issued the statement in response to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper. That report had said the commander-in-chief of the air force, Li Tien-yu (李天羽), admitted that the US had decided to speed up the delivery of the missiles in view of the rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) has obligated the US to provide Taiwan with essential defensive hardware to secure the country from attacks by China.
Tensions across the Strait have been on the rise following President Chen Shui-bian's (
Meanwhile, the press briefing also said unstable weather conditions forecasted for the Hsinchu area prompted the cancelations of a display by planes slated to take place at the Hsinchu air force base today.
The air force was trying to dispel media speculations that the recent accident in an air show in Ukraine as well as the rising tension across the Strait were what caused the air force to scrap the flying display.
In related news, to mark Air Force Day on Aug. 14, the Air Force General Headquarters has decided to open various air force bases around the country to the public.
The bases slated to be opened to the public include those in Tainan, Taitung, Kanshan, along with the ones in Hsinchu and Ching Chuan Kang.
The Air Force General Headquarters stressed that Taichung's Ching Chuan Kang base will be open to the public as scheduled on Aug. 11, adding that a display of various planes such as the IDF and the French-made Mirage will proceed if weather conditions permit.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS