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.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led