The navy has requested NT$616.2 million (US$19.27 million) for new dry dock cranes to help enhance its domestic wartime ship repair capacity, it said on Sunday.
Under a defense budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 submitted to the legislature, the navy plans to spend NT$377.7 million in 2025 and NT$377.9 million in 2026 to acquire the cranes.
Although it did not disclose the technical specifications of the purchases or say which supplier it would use, the navy said that the new cranes would allow damaged warships to be repaired more efficiently to better support the military.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
An assessment released in March last year by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Industrial Cooperation Program showed that Taiwan might be able to manufacture dry dock cranes domestically.
Taiwan’s naval shipbuilding capacity had progressed significantly in the past few years, the navy said, citing the domestically developed landing platform dock Yushan and the Tuo Chiang-class corvette.
More diverse vessels are either in production or being launched as part of the nation’s efforts to bolster its wartime readiness, it said.
In other news, the state-run Military News Agency last week reported that the military police is to debut its newly purchased heavy motorcycles in a military base opening event later this month.
The Taipei-based 202nd Military Police Regional Command’s Quick-Reaction Company is to showcase its new Indian Challenger motorcycles at a Sept. 24 “open house” event at an army base in Hsinchu County, it said.
The company is the only military unit in Taiwan equipped with heavy motorcycles.
It previously used 65 aging Japanese-made Yamaha Royal Stars, before the Military Police Command spent NT$65 million replacing them with US-made Indian Challengers.
The unit took delivery of them in November last year.
The military police is a separate branch of the armed forces tasked with protecting government leaders from assassination or capture, guarding strategic facilities, and conducting counterintelligence against enemy infiltrators, spies and saboteurs.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its