HEALTH
Cases stay above 40,000
Daily new COVID-19 cases in Taiwan exceeded 40,000 for the third consecutive day yesterday, as the nation confirmed 45,269 new local infections and 57 deaths from the disease, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said. The deceased ranged in age from their teens to their 90s, and all but four had underlying health issues, such as cancer and kidney-related diseases, CECC data showed. New Taipei City reported the highest number of new cases, with 9,775, followed by Taichung with 5,854, Taipei with 5,401, Taoyuan with 4,758, Kaohsiung with 3,704 and Tainan with 2,662, the CECC said in a statement. Changhua County had 2,091 new cases, Hsinchu County 1,304, Hsinchu City 1,204, Pingtung County 1,140, Miaoli County 1,089, Yilan County 1,050, Keelung 975 and Yunlin County 972. Nantou County had 842 cases, Hualien County 689, Chiayi County 685, Chiayi City 461, Taitung County 289, Kinmen County 161, Penghu County 142, and Lienchiang County 21, the CECC said.
TRANSPORTATION
Truck stops rail services
Train services between New Taipei City’s Fulong (福隆) and Yilan County’s Dali (大里) were briefly suspended yesterday after a tractor-trailer truck traveling along Provincial Highway No. 2 overturned and became stuck on a hillside above the railway tracks, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA). Police said the incident occurred near the highway’s 116km marker at about 7:48am, when the truck’s driver lost control of his vehicle and slammed through the guardrails along the roadside. The truck overturned and crashed into a thicket of trees, coming to rest on a hillside just 10m above the tracks. Service was restored on the outer track at 1pm and on the inner track at about 2:30pm, the TRA said. The driver, surnamed Huang (黃), freed himself after the incident and was treated in a hospital for minor injuries. A breath alcohol test conducted at the scene came back negative, police said.
TRADE
Deals signed for US crops
An agricultural mission on an official trip to Washington on Wednesday signed three letters of intent with US exporters to buy US$3.2 billion of crops next year and in 2024. Witnessed by 28 US lawmakers and several legislators from Taiwan, the delegation, led by Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城), signed the pacts with US agricultural industry associations to purchase soybeans, corn and wheat. Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said agricultural products play an important role in the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade. Taipei and Washington are scheduled to hold the first round of negotiations this fall on the trade initiative covering 11 areas with the goal of working toward a trade agreement.
DIPLOMACY
Pact signed with Belize
Belize yesterday signed a coast guard cooperation agreement with Taiwan covering search and rescue, fisheries enforcement and combating transnational crime at sea. Belizean Minister of National Defense and Border Security Florencio Marin Jr said the pact is part of Belize’s military diplomacy to strengthen partnership with its allies, the Belizean Ministry of National Defense and Border Security said in a statement. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the agreement was first signed by then-Ocean Affairs Council minister Lee Chung-wei (李仲威) in Taiwan and sent to Marin Jr to be signed in Belize.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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