MILITARY
China talks about exercises
China has conducted its first military drills with two operational aircraft carriers in the South China Sea, state media said yesterday. It did not specify when the exercises with the Liaoning and Shandong vessels took place, but said that the broader naval mission had overlapped with public holidays that spanned late September to last month. The drills “in an area of the South China Sea” intended to “hone and enhance the combat capability of the aircraft carrier formation system,” China Central Television (CCTV) reported. CCTV showed a video of jets taking off from and landing on the two carriers and said the exercises also took place in the Yellow and East China seas. The dual carrier exercises might have taken place after the drills around Taiwan last month and “represent a significant step forward in its carrier program and power projection capabilities,” maritime security analyst Duan Dang said. “We will certainly see more such exercises in the future, and China may incorporate both carriers into larger-scale Taiwan blockade exercises,” he added. China has stepped up a massive expansion of its naval forces in recent years, as it seeks to expand its reach in the Pacific and challenge a US-led alliance. The Fujian is expected to feature more advanced take-off systems, allowing the Chinese air force to deploy jets carrying larger payloads and more fuel, analysts at Washington-based think tank CSIS have said.
POLITICS
Ko’s hearing postponed
The court hearing for Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), which was scheduled for yesterday, has been postponed to today due to Typhoon Kong-rey. The Taipei District Court had scheduled a detention hearing to rule on whether prosecutors could detain Ko for another two months while they continue their investigation into alleged corruption in the Core Pacific City scandal. However, the court on Wednesday evening said that the detention hearing would be rescheduled to 9:30am today due to the suspension of work and classes. The court said that if there are also suspensions today, the hearing would be postponed to Monday at 9:30am. Ko has been detained and held incommunicado since Sept. 5 after the Taipei District Court ruled that he “clearly knew” of illegal real-estate dealings, yet “insisted” they did not happen during his second term as mayor of Taipei from 2018 to 2022.
SOCIETY
Child in car accident dies
An eight-year-old girl, who was hit by an unlicensed driver while crossing a Changhua County intersection in February, has died after more than eight months in a coma. The girl passed away late on Tuesday at Ham-ming Hospital, Changhua Christian Hospital said on Wednesday. The hospital did not disclose the cause of death, citing a request for privacy from her family. The eight-year-old and her 10-year-old sister were left in a coma after being hit by a 73-year-old man surnamed Hsiao (蕭) in Shengang Township (神岡) on Feb. 22. The two girls had been crossing an intersection with their seven-year-old brother, who escaped the collision without serious injury. The 10-year-old on Sept. 5 died at Show Chwan Memorial Hospital due to a central nervous system failure. Hsiao, who was driving without a license, tested negative for alcohol at the time of the accident. He was released on NT$50,000 bail in September after being questioned by Changhua prosecutors.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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