The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said an Air Force lieutenant who allegedly forwarded pictures of "Air Force One" to his girlfriend was being investigated.
"We have yet to decide how to punish him. However, we had to ground him temporarily because of his emotional state," said ministry Spokesman Rear Admiral Wu Chi-fang (吳季方).
Lieutenant Jen Jiunn-kang (任駿剛) was one of the four pilots who flew F-16s as an escort for "Air Force One" after it took off for the president's trip to Palau on Sunday.
Cameras are prohibited at military bases or during missions. Jen was authorized to carry a camera with him to take pictures of the mission as a record for his fleet.
Jen forwarded the pictures to his girlfriend and she posted the pictures on a blog mocking the president with captions that read: "It's so much trouble to send the devil away," and "It is like eagles seeing off a frog."
"Air Force One" was compared to a "big frog" after its bottom was repainted green in April.
When the blog was first discovered by the press and made public, the military began to investigate the case and the blog was closed down on Monday.
"Although [Jen] was authorized to carry a camera, what he did was controversial. It [his punishment] depends on how the investigators look at his behavior," Wu said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁芳) said that the military was over-reacting.
"If the military wants to punish somebody, it should punish Jen's superior officer," Lin said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS