The Coast Guard Administration’s Special Task Unit marked its 10th anniversary yesterday with a martial arts demonstration at a training facility in Taoyuan.
Expounding on the unit members’ physical capabilities and stamina, Lieutenant Colonel Lee Su-ching (李甦清), head of the unit tasked with anti-terrorism and rescue assignments, said each member of the unit goes through tough training courses on a daily basis.
“Push-ups, for example. Every one of us needs to complete at least 100 push-ups within a minute every day,” he said.
All 52 members on the unit are career soldiers and are stationed at Taoyuan Airport, Taichung Airport, Kaohsiung Airport, Hualien Airport and Taitung Airport.
Lee said members must go through a three-month training course by the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit, and another two-month course by the Military Police’s Special Service Unit. Each unit member must also be a certified lifeguard, swimming coach and scuba diver, and have certificates demonstrating their underwater skills, Lee said.
Each unit member is also proficient in at least two different styles of martial arts.
“Some of them volunteered to join us because of the fatter paychecks, I must admit,” Lee said, noting that members enjoy an additional NT$29,500 on top of their regular monthly paychecks because of the additional risks involved in carrying out their assignments.
“But surviving in this unit takes a lot of guts, persistence and belief,” he said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS