Taiwan denied yesterday having halted a plan to upgrade its domestically made Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) fighter aircraft, saying the fate of the plan would be decided next month.
“All the Ministry of National Defense’s plans must be submitted to the Cabinet for approval. The Cabinet thinks some parts of our plan [to upgrade the IDFs] need to be clarified, so the ministry has asked the air force to send a report to the Cabinet,” ministry spokeswoman Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) told the Central News Agency.
“The Cabinet has not decided if the plan should be halted yet. As far as I know, the Cabinet will not make a decision until the end of August,” Chih said, responding to a newspaper report that claimed Taiwan had suspended the upgrade to avoid undermining warming ties with Beijing.
On July 14, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) quoted an unnamed military source as saying that the Cabinet had instructed the ministry to halt the Hsiang Chan Project next year.
The paper reported that the Cabinet had said it would still allocate next year’s NT$1 billion (US$32 million) budget for the Hsiang Chan Project, but that the Air Force should use the money for other purposes.
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
EARTHQUAKE: Taipei and New Taipei City accused a construction company of ignoring the Circular MRT’s original design, causing sections to shift by up to 92cm The Taipei and New Taipei City governments yesterday said they would seek NT$1.93 billion (US$58.6 million) in compensation from the company responsible for building the Circular MRT Line, following damage sustained during an earthquake in April last year that had shuttered a section for months. BES Engineering Corp, a listed company under Core Pacific Group, was accused of ignoring the original design when constructing the MRT line, resulting in negative shear strength resistance and causing sections of the rail line between Jhonghe (中和) and Banciao (板橋) districts to shift by up to 92cm during the April 3 earthquake. The pot bearings on
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