ASTRONOMY
Jupiter brightening
Stargazers on Tuesday are to have a chance to see Jupiter at its brightest, when it moves closest to Earth, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The opposition of Jupiter, which occurs when Earth comes between the sun and the largest planet in the solar system, would offer the best view of Jupiter this year, and observation conditions should be ideal days before and after the opposition, the museum said. Jupiter is easy to locate, as it rises at dusk from the southeast and descends at dawn to the southwest, it said. During the event, Jupiter could brighten to a magnitude of minus-2.8, which is about the brightness of a new moon, it said. The magnitude scale measures the brightness of a celestial body as seen from Earth and its value falls as an object becomes brighter.
AGRICULTURE
Pork exports resume
Taiwanese pork on Friday arrived in Macau for the first time in 24 years after the nation was declared a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free zone where vaccination is not practiced, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said. The 550kg shipment, delivered on a StarLux Airlines flight, was a trial batch consisting mainly of refrigerated pork and frozen meat, COA Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) said. Casino operators in Macau have placed orders with COA-partnered Taiwanese hog farmers for the refrigerated meat of about 200 pigs per week, Huang said. The shipment to Macau came just weeks after the World Organization for Animal Health last month declared Taiwan, including the outlying counties of Penghu and Lienchiang, an FMD-free zone.
TRANSPORT
No injuries in derailment
The derailment of a Tzuchiang Limited Express train on Friday evening caused delays for 20,234 passengers, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday. No one was injured. Normal service resumed yesterday morning. Northbound Train No. 140, which was to travel from Changhua County to Keelung, was not carrying any passengers when it derailed at 6:10pm at Changhua Station, as it was about to be dispatched, the TRA said. The derailment damaged some of the tracks, and as a result all TRA trains in both directions were forced to travel on one track, delaying 59 trains for a combined 2,921 minutes, it said. The TRA said it fixed the problem overnight, and all services returned to normal at 4:30am yesterday. The cause of the incident is under investigation, it added.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Leaders plan twin-city forum
The annual twin-city forum between Taipei and Shanghai is this year to be held by videoconference amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said on Wednesday. The two sides are in talks to choose a videoconferencing platform to use, as each side has expressed concerns, Ko said, adding: “Taiwan cannot use Huawei and China cannot use Google, so we are still figuring out how to resolve the issue.” Ko did not give a date for the meeting as preparations are still being made. The forum was launched in 2010 by then-Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), with each city taking turns hosting it, usually in July or August. Last year the forum was hosted by Shanghai on July 4. The event has served as a platform for cross-strait exchanges that focus on cultural and economic matters without touching on sovereignty issues.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
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