Diplomacy: Japan's Ishiba boosts Taiwan
Taiwan should not be excluded from the Northeast Asian security system, Japan's new defense chief said over the weekend. Shigeru Ishiba, director-general of the Defense Agency, said in a television program broadcast Sunday that any Northeast Asian security system that were to exclude Taiwan would be unreal. Asked about his view on former president Lee Teng-hui's plan to visit Japan next month, Ishiba said he understands that Lee has received an invitation to make a private visit to Tokyo. But he stopped short of going into detail. The Keizai Shinjin Kai, a student association at Japan's elite Keio University, has invited Lee to deliver a speech in late November on the traditional Japanese spirit, as part of the school's birthday celebrations.
Defense: Officials get CSIS training
A group of 25 government officials will attend a training program hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington this month. The strategic training program, the third of its kind, was exclusively designed for Taiwan under a contract with the Ministry of National Defense and will be held at Georgetown University from Oct. 15 to 22, according to ministry sources. This will be the first time that civilians from the foreign, interior and economic affairs ministries and the National Security Council will attend the program. General Kao Hua-chu (高華柱), deputy commander in chief of the army, will head the group. General Liang Kung-kai (梁功凱), acting director of the ministry's newly-established Department of Strategic Planning, will also attend.
Labor affairs: Foreign workers getting less
There were a total of 311,464 foreign workers in Taiwan at the end of August, down by 736 from July, according to the recent statistics released by the Council of Labor Affairs. The largest proportion -- 162,912 workers -- were hired in the domestic manufacturing sector, followed by 119,110 working as domestic maids or caregivers. The August drop followed a three-consecutive-month rise, according to statistics that indicate that some 120,000 workers from Thailand made up the bulk of the foreign labor force as of the end of August, followed by those from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in that order. The number of foreign laborers in the construction sector posted the largest fall of 703 from the month-earlier level, while the number of foreign domestic maids and caregivers was down by 245. In contrast, an additional 75 foreign workers were employed in the manufacturing sector.
Earthquakes: Tremors hit Ilan, Nantou
Two moderate earthquakes shook Taiwan yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of damages or casualties. The first quake -- measuring 5 on the Richter scale -- occurred at 7:38am with its epicentre 35km off Ilan on Taiwan's east coast, 5.3km under the sea. The second quake, measuring 4.4, hit at 8:55am with its epicentre in Nantou, central Taiwan. Taiwan sits on the circum-Pacific seismic belt. About 68 percent of the world's earthquakes occur along this belt. Most of the quakes which occur off Taiwan's east coast are caused by friction between the Eurasian Plate and the Filipino Plate.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
RSS