MILITARY
Pilot returns to cockpit
A fighter pilot who ejected safely after his Mirage 2000 lost power last month, with the jet crashing in waters off Hsinchu County, has returned to flying, the air force said on Friday. Captain Hsieh Pei-hsun (謝沛勳) has been restored to flight status after making every effort to be back in the cockpit safeguarding Taiwan’s airspace, the air force wrote on Facebook, with the post including a video of Hsieh discussing the experience of his path to recovery. The pilot was rescued by coast guard personnel after the single-seat jet lost power during a training operation on Sept. 10. He was hospitalized with minor injuries. He was part of a flight mission on a twin-seat Mirage-2000 on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter said. Hsieh has logged 795 flight hours, including 509 hours flying the French-made fighters, the air force said after the incident last month.
RESEARCH
New fish species reported
A marine research station on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) has discovered its first new fish species, nearly four years since its establishment, the National Academy of Marine Research said this month. The new species — Fusigobius taipinensis — was found by a joint team from the academy and National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) that was searching for cryptic species in the Gobiidae family, it said. The fish is the first Gobiidae species discovered in waters around Taiping since a permanent research station was established on the South China Sea island in late 2020, it said. The new species lives in coral reefs about 20m deep near Taiping Island and has also been found, albeit in smaller numbers, in waters around Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球) off Taiwan’s southwest coast, it said. The 3cm to 6cm transparent fish have many yellow spots on their body and two dark black dots on their dorsal fin, which the academy said helped researchers identify them as a distinct species. NTOU professor Chen I-hsiung (陳義雄) said that Gobiidae, or gobie, is the largest family of reef fish and forms a large portion of the world’s tropical marine fish fauna. Of the more than 2,000 species within the gobie family, more than 260 can be found in waters around Taiwan, Chen said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Max streaming to launch
Warner Bros Discovery is to launch its Max streaming service in Taiwan on Nov. 19 as part of plans to expand into the Asian market, the US media company said in a statement last week. Max would be launched in Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong and five Southeast Asian countries — Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines — next month following the successful introduction of the service in the US, Latin America and Europe, said J.B. Perrette, chief executive officer and president of Global Streaming and Games at Warner Bros Discovery. The firm offers its HBO Go streaming service in seven markets, with content similar to that available on HBO TV. “Max brings together unparalleled quality content from iconic brands like HBO, Discovery, the DC Universe, Harry Potter, AFN and Cartoon Network, as well as Hollywood blockbusters, all in one place,” he said. More details about pricing would be announced in the coming weeks and would vary by country and provider, the company said. The monthly subscription for HBO Go in Taiwan is NT$150, while the basic plan for Netflix is NT$270 per month, the same as Disney+, which entered the Taiwan market in November 2021.
Rain is to increase from Wednesday morning as Severe Tropical Storm Kong-Rey approaches, with sea warnings to be issued as early as tomorrow afternoon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. As of 8am, Kong-Rey was 1,050km east-southeast of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) heading in a northwesterly direction toward Taiwan, CWA Forecast Center Director Lin Po-tung (林伯東) said. Rainfall is to increase from Wednesday morning, especially in northern Taiwan and Yilan County, he said. A sea warning is possible from tomorrow afternoon, while a land warning may be issued on Wednesday morning, he added. Kong-Rey may intensify into a moderate typhoon as it passes
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
A former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), formerly known as SEAL Team 6, said in an interview with Business Insider that the elite unit’s role in a Taiwan Strait conflict would be more limited than some might expect. The report follows an earlier one in September by the Financial Times, which said the “clandestine US Navy commando unit” has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China. “You don’t use a scalpel for a job a hammer can do,” the former Navy Seal said to Business Insider on condition of anonymity.
RSS