Following the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines plane, inspection measures at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport must be raised to the highest level, Minister of the Interior Chen Wei-jen (陳威仁) said yesterday during an inspection of the airport.
Apart from providing quality service, all security inspection operations at the airport must be raised to “the standard of counter-terrorist operations in countries such as the US and Israel,” he said.
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Aviation Police Bureau have asked all airports and ports to enhance safety inspections and passport checks to prevent travelers from using fake or stolen passports and search for possible terrorist suspects through the Passenger Information System before planes depart, he said.
Photo: Yao Chieh-hsiu, Taipei Times
NIA Director-General Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) and National Police Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) accompanied Chen during his inspection of front-line safety and passport check operations.
Detailed safety inspection measures, such as checking passengers’ baggage, leather shoes and belts, should not be neglected, while thorough inspections should also be carried out on passengers in wheelchairs — including checking the wheelchair, wheels, cushions and accompanying ground personnel, he said.
While the number of passengers departing Taiwan has increased by about 54 percent in recent years, the number of security personnel for inspections has only increased by about 7 percent, he said.
The ministry will try to get a more funds to improve manpower levels and outsourcing of routine work, he said.
After the Malaysia Airlines plane vanished on March 8, the National Counterterrorism Center immediately put the Personal Information Security system into use, so that suspect passengers can be screened out before planes depart and flights can be closely monitored, the minister said.
Meanwhile, the National Counterterrorism Center is linked to a US counterterrorism database, and inspections will strictly prohibit the entry of suspected terrorists or passengers with insufficient identification, the ministry said.
To enhance inspections of passengers and cooperate with the US counterterrorism actions, the NIA has launched the Biometrics Verification System for Foreign Visitors, which collects the fingerprint and visual images of all foreign visitors to help prevent the entry of passengers using bogus travel documents.
The system is undergoing a trial operation at the Kaohsiung International Airport, the immigration agency said.
It said that the system will eventually be installed at all major airports and ports nationwide.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS