■ Aviation
Plane in emergency landing
A Mandarin Airlines airplane made an emergency landing in southern Taiwan yesterday after one of its windows was broken by a piece of de-icing equipment that was dislodged during bad weather, an airline spokesman said. No one was injured in the incident, airline authorities said. The local carrier has an extensive network of domestic and regional routes. Authorities said the aircraft, a Fokker-50 propeller plane, was carrying 50 passengers and a crew of four. It was en route from Taipei to Hengchun, a popular holiday destination on the nation's southern tip. Authorities did not specify the bad weather, but television reports described rain and high winds in the area. The plane landed safely in Kaohsiung, authorities said. Civil aviation in Taiwan has long suffered from endemic safety problems, with China Airlines -- the nation's largest carrier -- suffering 10 fatal crashes since 1970. The airline, however, was given a top-level safety certificate by the International Air Transport Association last month in recognition of improved standards.
■ Earthquake
Tremor rocks north
A powerful earthquake measuring six on the Richter scale rocked the north of the country early yesterday morning, swaying high-rise buildings in Taipei and sending panicked residents to the streets. A wooden hut in Taoyuan County collapsed, but initially no casualties were reported, police said. The quake happened at 12:20am some 12km off Suao at a depth of 57.7km, according to the Earthquake Center of the Central Weather Bureau. The tremor was caused by friction between the Philippines plate and the Euro-Asia plate. Aftershocks were expected in the next few days, officials said.
■ Politics
Officials hope to pass bills
The Executive Yuan is hoping that three bills concerning the restructuring of the government can be passed in an extra session of the Legislative Yuan, Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮), director of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission under the Executive Yuan, said yesterday. Yeh said that the bills concerning an amendment to the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan, a draft bill on the total number of employees of central government agencies, and a draft bill on the adjustment of the function, operation and organization of the Executive Yuan are crucial to upgrading the government's efficiency. Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has said he hopes an extra session of the Legislative Yuan can be held in late July. The priority bills include those related to a long-stalled arms procurement package, the tax laws, a review of a list of Control Yuan members nominated by the president and a statute on the establishment of a pension fund supervisory commission.
■ Education
Lack of teachers cited
Colleges and universities around Taiwan are churning out qualified teachers, but with 180 graduates this year for each opening, the number of unemployed teachers is growing, prompting some to take to the streets June 12 to vent their frustrations. The potential teachers, most of them having never had the opportunity to teach after graduation, will walk the streets of Taipei on June 12 to ask the Ministry of Education to consider increasing the number of teachers in elementary and junior high schools and implementing small-class programs to create more openings for the jobless who are qualified to teach.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
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