AIRLINES
Starlux unveils new route
Starlux Airlines on Dec. 2 is to launch a new route between Taichung and Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, it said in a statement yesterday. Starlux is to operate four round-trip flights on the new route every week, with tickets available now for purchase, it said. The airline would use Airbus A321neos with 188 seats, eight of which are business class and the rest economy class, it said. With flights between Taichung and Vietnam’s Phu Quoc Island to begin on Oct. 27, the Okinawa route would be the fourth scheduled overseas destination from Taichung provided by Starlux, with the other two to Macau and Da Nang in Vietnam, it said. The airline also operates charter flights between Taichung and Takamatsu in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture.
DIPLOMACY
AIT names new official
A former aide to former US secretary of state John Kerry has assumed the post of cultural affairs officer at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taiwan announced on Monday. Anne Foss, former special assistant to the under-secretary for public diplomacy at the US Department of State, as well as a special assistant to Kerry when he was secretary, began her new role in Taipei on Monday last week, the AIT said.
DIPLOMACY
Swedish delegation visits
A parliamentary group from Sweden is visiting Taiwan to better understand the country’s democratization and the situation across the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. The cross-party delegation from the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentarian Association is led by Lotta Johnsson Fornarve of the Left Party. It also includes John Weinerhall of the Moderate Party, a member on the committee on defense, and Goran Hargestam of the Sweden Democrats, a member of the committee on foreign affairs. The association has long been a firm supporter of Taiwan in the Swedish parliament and strongly backs Taiwan’s meaningful participation in world bodies such as the WHO, the ministry said, adding that it hopes the visit would help boost two-way parliamentary interactions and enhance the delegation members’ understanding of Taiwan’s democratic development and cross-strait situation.
SOCIETY
Man dies after leak
A 19-year-old man died on Monday night after having been in a coma following a carbon dioxide leak on Tuesday last week at an onshore construction site for an offshore wind farm in Changhua County. The man, surnamed Chien (簡), was one of three people who went into cardiac arrest at the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park site during the incident. Chien had no heartbeat when he was found and was rushed to Tungs’ Taichung MetroHarbor Hospital. He was put in an intensive care unit with a coma scale of three, the lowest possible score, indicating no eye opening, verbal response or motor response. The site’s main contractor, Teco Electric & Machinery Co, in a statement yesterday offered condolences to Chien’s family and pledged to provide assistance to the family and the other workers who were injured. The two others who were found without vital signs were a 58-year-old man surnamed Liu (劉) and a 38-year-old man surnamed Lai (賴). Both were in intensive care with coma scales of three. The other 14 workers who were injured had all been discharged from hospital.
HSINCHU CASES: Five people among 35 who were reported being sick were still in hospital after eating at a vendor in a market in Jhubei, the local health agency said Thirty-five people have sought medical treatment for acute symptoms after allegedly eating banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from a vendor in Jhubei City (竹北), the Hsinchu County Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that since Saturday, it has received several reports of suspected food poisoning from hospitals. The vendor has been ordered to temporarily suspend its business, it said, adding that tests were being conducted to determine whether the people had food poisoning, with results expected in about two weeks. A preliminary investigation showed that the people who sought treatment had recently eaten banh mi at a vendor at a retail market
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
China lacks the ability to “fully” invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing online advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. In an annual threat assessment of China sent to lawmakers, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the ministry said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations. “However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the natural geographical environment of the Taiwan Strait and insufficient landing equipment and logistic capabilities,”