The Executive Yuan has approved a program to protect the nation’s maritime rights and ensure that coast guard patrol vessels are seaworthy, as China Coast Guard vessels are entering restricted waters near Kinmen County.
On Feb. 14, a Chinese vessel with no name, no certificate and no registration capsized in prohibited waters near Kinmen County while being pursued by a Coast Guard Administration (CGA) vessel, resulting in the deaths of two fishers.
Beijing said that there are no “prohibited” or “restricted” waters near Kinmen, and now China Coast Guard vessels have been increasingly intruding in those waters.
Photo provided by the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
The mechanical parts of the CGA’s vessels wear down easily due to the nature of the missions they are used for, CGA said yesterday.
It created the 2024-2028 Coast Guard Patrol Preparedness Program to ensure the seaworthiness of its vessels, navigation safety, that vessels’ main and auxiliary engines function well, and that inspection deadlines and requirements are met, the agency said.
The program would include W5 maintenance — the repair and upkeep of the main and auxiliary engines and key mounting parts — and W6 maintenance — major overhauls and general inspections — to enhance the vessels’ performance and extend their lifespan to at least 15 years, the CGA said.
It would enable patrol operations to be more flexible and effective, the agency added.
Under the program, NT$1.56 billion (US$48.96 million) has been allocated this year for the maintenance of 19 vessels and to order four engines for 3,000-tonne patrol vessels.
NT$1.7 billion would be allocated next year for the maintenance of 14 vessels, as well as for receiving and inspecting backup engines. NT$1.55 billion would be spent on the maintenance of 21 vessels in 2026, while NT$1.8 billion would be spent on 27 vessels in 2027 and NT$2.24 billion on 33 vessels in 2028.
Moreover, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) has agreed to use the Cabinet’s secondary reserve fund this year to pay the NT$21.5 million needed for the 3,061 surveillance cameras that coast guard vessels require.
The CGA said it originally planned to purchase the surveillance cameras under its 2025-2028 Coast Guard Basic Equipment Replacement and Improvement Medium-Term Program, but as the Cabinet plans to use its secondary reserve fund, cameras could be installed on all vessels this year.
Of the coast guard’s 172 vessels — excluding 18 on which surveillance cameras cannot be installed, because 16 are to be scrapped and two are rubber boats — a fixed outboard surveillance camera system had been installed on 124 vessels as of the end of last month, it said.
That translates to a coverage rate of 80.5 percent, it said.
After last month’s incident with the Chinese vessel, all coast guard boats that are 10 tonnes or smaller would also have surveillance cameras installed, increasing the coverage rate to 100 percent, the CGA said.
Five new patrol boats that are expected to be received in the next two years would also have surveillance cameras installed, it added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching