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.
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The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
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