DEFENSE
More Chinese incursions
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported renewed Chinese military activity, including 13 aircraft entering the nation’s “response” zone and five ships carrying out combat-readiness patrols. The ministry said that starting at about 7am, it detected 22 Chinese aircraft — fighters, bombers, early warning aircraft and drones — of which 13 entered Taiwan’s “response” zone, although it did not give details. The military sent aircraft and ships to monitor them, it said. Taiwan does not publicize where its “response” zone is, but it keeps closest watch on the Taiwan Strait and the area to the nation’s south and southwest where Chinese military activity often is concentrated. China has not announced further drills around Taiwan since Saturday, but it frequently mounts such missions without acknowledging them beforehand or afterwards.
SOCIETY
Woman dies after fall
A 74-year-old woman died after falling on the tracks at Taipei Railway Station yesterday, police said. The woman, surnamed Liu (劉), reportedly fell onto the tracks at platform B3 at about 12:10pm as a train pulled into the station. First responders pulled the woman out from under the train, but she was pronounced dead after being sent to hospital, police said. Police officers and emergency services at the scene said the injuries that the woman sustained were not sufficiently severe to have killed her and, as such, the cause of death remains to be determined.
CRIME
Teen ‘beaten to death’
Police in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) on Thursday arrested three suspects for allegedly beating to death a 19-year-old man who owed one of the suspects money. The victim, surnamed Chen (陳), is believed to have arranged a meeting in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲) with another man, also surnamed Chen (陳), whom he owed “tens of thousands of New Taiwan dollars,” the New Taipei City Police Department said. He was taken to a rental property by Chen and two other men, who allegedly beat him with a baseball bat and other blunt objects, police said. After he became unresponsive, the three suspects called an ambulance. He was pronounced dead after being rushed to the Tamsui branch of Mackay Memorial Hospital, which contacted the police at about 2am on Thursday.
DIPLOMACY
Swedish MP lauds ties
Visiting Swedish lawmaker Mathias Tegner said he looked forward to seeing more exchanges between Taiwan and Sweden in the areas of trade and technology, during a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office in Taipei on Wednesday. The two nations will “benefit from deeper cooperation and increased trade,” said Tegner, vice chair of the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentarian Association. He called for more exchanges between the two nations in areas of green technology and energy transition, saying both sides had “a lot to learn from each other,” adding that the opening of direct flights between Taipei and Stockholm “would further increase interactions between us.” Tsai expressed similar views, saying she looked forward to seeing the partnership between Taiwan and Sweden deepen, especially in tackling climate change and promoting supply chain security. Tegner arrived in Taiwan on Saturday with a cross-party delegation for a seven-day visit. The group departed yesterday.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
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