AVIATION
Chinese drone delays flights
A Chinese drone was on Tuesday morning detected for the first time near Matsu Nangan Airport in Lienchiang County and disrupted two flights, airport director Weng Ting-huang (翁丁煌) said. The army’s Matsu Defense Command notified the control tower that a Chinese drone was seen 5 nautical miles (9.3km) from the airport at about 9am, Weng said. The tower immediately notified a UNI Air aircraft approaching the airport of the drone’s presence, delaying its landing. The drone hovered near the airport for about 20 minutes before it left, after which the UNI Air plane was approved for landing, 30 minutes behind schedule. A second UNI Air flight scheduled to depart later was also delayed, Weng said. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) has set up drone detection systems at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Kaohsiung International Airport, CAA Deputy Director-General Lin Jiunn-liang (林俊良) said. No such system has been installed at Lienchiang’s airports, but the current systems would still have difficulty detecting drones 10km away, he said.
SOCIETY
Rare snake caught for venom
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Ministry of Agriculture officials recovered a hundred-pace snake from a home in Taitung’s Yanping Township (延平), a CDC official said yesterday. The Deinagkistrodon acutus, which is listed as a threatened species, is a venomous snake found in mountainous parts of eastern and southern Taiwan. After receiving a report of the snake yesterday morning, the CDC sent officials to recover it and bring it to a lab in Taipei to produce antivenom, said snake expert Tsai Wei-yi (蔡緯毅), who caught the animal. “If you look closely, you can see that its nose has been injured. It lunged at me when I caught it, but only as a warning,” he said. “Usually a hundred-pacer will not try to bite you, unless it feels threatened.” The CDC keeps venomous snakes at its lab for up to 10 years, and they are replaced as they age, CDC official Chiang Wen-che (江玟徹) said, adding that it has four hundred-pacers in its inventory. “This species is relatively rare. It has already been seven years since I last made the trip to Taitung to retrieve” one, he said. Despite the snake’s rarity, the CDC must have antivenom on hand at all times, he said, adding that venom is taken from the snake twice a year.
JUDICIARY
Court to look at injunctions
The Constitutional Court is on Wednesday next week to hold a preparatory hearing about injunction applications seeking to pause enforcement of government oversight laws that went into effect on Wednesday last week, the Judicial Yuan said on Tuesday. The Judicial Yuan, which oversees the Constitutional Court, said that stakeholders would be summoned to the court to present their views. They include the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus, President William Lai (賴清德) and the Executive Yuan. All parties submitted injunction applications and petitioned the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the amendments last week. Representatives from the Legislative Yuan are also expected to be summoned, the Judicial Yuan said. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party, which together form a majority in the legislature, passed the amendments to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) and the Criminal Code on May 28. The court has agreed to review the DPP caucus’ petition against the legislation, but has not yet decided on those filed by the Executive Yuan and the president.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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