EARTHQUAKE
Temblor near Okinawa felt
A strong magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck in waters off Okinawa at 10:59am yesterday. The quake occurred in the East China Sea, 218km west of Okinawa’s capital, Naha, and nearly 500km northeast of Taiwan. The quake’s depth was 222km. Central Weather Bureau seismologists said the temblor shook most parts of Taiwan, but its extreme depth limited the extent to which it was felt on the ground. The earthquake had an intensity of 2 in Hualien City and Orchid Island (蘭嶼) off Taitung County, and an intensity of 1 in most cities and counties from Taipei, Keelung and Yilan to Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the bureau said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage on Okinawa or Taiwan
CULTURE
Concerts to be aired live
Taipei City Government will broadcast the Berliner Philharmoniker concerts at the National Concert Hall on Nov. 18 and Nov. 19 live at Taipei Arena, and 20,000 free tickets to the arena viewing will be given out this weekend. The live broadcasts of the concerts will be available in Taipei City, Greater Taichung, Hsinchu and Hualien County. In Taipei, the city government will broadcast the concerts on a 16m-long and 9m-wide LED screen in the arena. The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said the city would give out 10,000 tickets for each concert, and tickets would be available from 9am to 5pm on Saturday at Exit 5 of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall MRT Station and at the service desk of Taipei Arena. Any remaining tickets will distributed the following day, at the same time and same place, TRTC general manager Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光) said. Tickets will be limited to two per person.
DEFENSE
Two E-2Ts leave for retrofit
Two airborne early-warning aircraft that the US sold to the air force in the 1990s left Greater Kaohsiung for the US yesterday for upgrades, by sea. The two E-2T aircraft were flown from an airbase in Pingtung County to Kaohsiung International Airport before being towed to Kaohsiung Harbor. Military sources said the two E-2Ts will be the third and fourth to undergo retrofits in the US under an arms sale agreed to by the US in October 2008, which included an upgrade of four E-2Ts to the Hawkeye 2000 configuration at a cost of US$250 million. The first and second E-2Ts were sent to the US in June last year and are expected to return home at the end of this year. The aircraft will be refitted with more efficient eight-blade propellers and have their radar and surveillance systems upgraded.
FISHERIES
Hijacked boat back at work
The Taiwanese trawler Ching Yi Wen is once again fishing in the Indian Ocean after a brush with armed Somali pirates last weekend, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The 28 crewmembers, none of whom were Taiwanese, were able to overpower the pirates that hijacked the boat on Friday southeast of the Seychelles and regain control of the ship. Two Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations-authorized anti-piracy vessels escorted the Ching Yi Wen to the Seychelles so the three crewmembers who were injured in the clash could receive medical treatment, ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said. The boat’s owner decided to have the Kaohsiung-registered fishing boat resume operations a few hundred kilometers away from where it was hijacked, Chang said. The ministry reminded Taiwanese fishing boats to stay away from waters where hijackings have taken place.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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