Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday said the nation’s military installations on Taiping Island (太平島, Itu Aba Island) are vulnerable to intelligence gathering by a China-linked transport ship that has defied maritime regulations that require it to report its position when entering Taiwan’s near-shore waters.
Kuan told the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday that Hua Yun No. 12 entered Kaohsiung Harbor on Oct. 3, then headed up the coast to Greater Tainan’s Anping Port on Oct. 8.
“However, since Oct. 8, the ship had turned off its Automatic Identification System [AIS] to avoid reporting its location. This violates maritime regulations,” Kuan said, demanding that the government immediately expel the ship from the nation’s waters.
AIS is a tracking system used to identify and locate vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations and satellites.
“The transportation ministry did not track the ship’s passage and even allowed it to travel within the nation’s near-shore waters to break our maritime law at will,” she said.
“The government was unaware of the ship’s movement and unable to act. Its screws are all loose and it has fallen apart,” she added.
The ship was reportedly hired by East Pi Builds Co of Greater Kaohsiung, which secured a NT$3.37 billion (US$110 million) government project to build a wharf on Taiping Island.
Kuan initially raised the security issue on Oct. 10.
“At the time, transport ministry officials said Hua Yun No. 12 would leave for Russia on Oct. 11 and would not participate in the Taiping Island project,” she said. “This ship is still in Anping Port and has changed its departure to this afternoon. The port data log also records it as a Republic of China ship.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime and Port Bureau head Chi Wen-chong (祁文中) said that although the ship is Chinese-owned, it is contracted to a Hong Kong firm and registered in Cambodia.
“Therefore, we had problems with its proper identification. Turning off its AIS has violated our regulations, so we will blacklist this vessel in the future,” he said.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with