Twenty-seven Chinese warplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Wednesday, Taipei said, as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her controversial visit to the self-ruled island that Beijing considers its territory.
“27 PLA aircraft… entered the surrounding area of (Republic of China) on August 3, 2022,” the defence ministry said in a tweet.
AFP
Winners celebrated on the red carpet at the 28th Golden Melody Awards on Saturday (June 24) in Taipei.
Hong Kong singer Khalil Fong was awarded Best Male Singer and Taiwanese singer Eve Ai was awarded best Female Singer Awards, while Taiwanese rock band MayDay swept the Best Mandarin Album and the Best Lyrics Awards.
The Golden Melody Awards are organised by Taiwan’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, which is subordinate to the Ministry of Culture, MOC, providing a total of 30 awards to the music artists who have outstanding achievements in the past year.
This year’s ceremony included performances by Glay, MayDay, Taiwanese singers Yoga Lin and A-mei. Artists mainly came from Taiwan and other neighbouring Asian countries, including mainland China, Japan and Malaysia.
The TransAsia plane that crashed into a river in Taipei, killing 35 people, failed to produce enough thrust after take-off, Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council officials confirmed on Friday, adding that one engine was turned off and restarted.
Flight GE235 was carrying 58 passengers and crew, at least 35 of whom died when it lurched nose-up between buildings, clipped an overpass and a taxi with one of its wings and then crashed upside down into a river.
The black-box data and voice recorders of the two-engined aircraft showed that the plane warned five times of stalling before the crash, also that the flight crew tried to restart one of the failed engines to no avail. Council officials said.
“The right engine entered a state called ‘auto-feather’, in which it reduced thrust to the propeller.
“The flight crew then reduced acceleration to the left engine and then attempted to restart it, but it did not gain
enough thrust,” Managing Director of the council, Thomas Wang, stated without giving a reason for the restart.
He said the pilot had announced a “flame-out”, which could happen when fuel supply to an engine is interrupted or when there is faulty combustion, but there had not been one.
“The first engine experienced a problem 37 seconds after take-off at 1,200 feet.
“The flight crew stepped on the accelerator of engine 2 … The engine was still operating, but neither engine produced power,” Thomas said.
He said that the aircraft could fly with one engine, that the plane was powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW127M engines. Pratt & Whitney which is part of United Technologies.
The pilot, hailed as a hero for his actions in the final moments, was still holding the joystick in the cockpit when his body was found.
The pilot, Liao Chien-tsung, was praised by Taipei’s Mayor for steering the plane between apartment blocks and commercial buildings before ditching the stalled aircraft in a river.
The bodies of Liao and his co-pilot were retrieved from the almost-new turboprop ATR 72-600’s cockpit still clutching the joystick, with their legs badly broken, investigators said.
Eight people are still missing. Aviation officials said they have not given up hope of finding them. Fifteen people survived.
The plane took off from Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport and was bound for the Taiwan island of Kinmen. Among those on board were 31 tourists from China, mainly from the southwestern city of Xiamen.
Taiwan’s Aviation Regulator has ordered TransAsia and Uni Air, a subsidiary of EVA Airways Corp, to conduct engine and fuel system checks on the remaining 22 ATR aircraft they still operate.
The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has confirmed Nigeria as one of the countries to participate at the 2014 World Cup.
Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri would represent Africa in the Men’s World Cup taking place in Dusseldorf, Germany on October 24 to 26.
Quadri secured qualification during the maiden African Top 16 Cup that took place in Lagos and the Nigerian would be making a second appearance at the tournament after his debut at the 2009 edition in Moscow, Russia.
For the women’s World Cup, Egypt’s Dina Meshref would be Africa’s representative when the tournament serves off in Linz, Austria on October 17 to 19.
The International Table Tennis Federation has confirmed that 20 women and 20 men would compete at the two events holding next month.
The players qualified for the prestigious World Cup events through their exploits at Continental Competitions, which simply means only the best of the best can compete.
Other players that earned automatic qualification to play in the 2014 World Cup were the current World Champions, Jike Zhang of China and Xiaoxia Li of China, while the two lucky players to receive a wildcard into the events are Greece’s Panagiotis Gionis and Romania’s Elizabeta Samara.
Some of the top stars competing at the 2014 World Cup include Olympic bronze medallist, Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, who will be aiming to win his first Men’s World Cup, judging by the home support he would enjoy in Dusseldorf.
Ovtcharov would be the locals’ favourite to win the Men’s World Cup, as would Austrian Liu Jia in the Women’s World Cup.
Liu qualified by sensationally winning the DHS Europe Cup earlier, and would be keen to take that strong form to Linz where she hopes to win a medal.
Asides Nigeria’s Quadri, other players competing in the men’s World Cup are China’s Jike Zhang, Greece’s Panagiotis Gionis, Portugal’s Marcos Freitas, Denmark’s Michael Maze, France’s Adrien Mattenet, Russia’s Alexander Shibaev, Germany’s Timo Boll, India’s Sharath Kamal Achanta, China’s Taipei’s Chuang Chih-Yuan, Japan’s Matsudaira Kenta and Hong Kong’s Tang Peng.
The U-12 baseball team of Nigeria is to embark on a training trip to the United States of America ahead of the Baseball Championship taking place in China.
The spokesperson of the board of the Nigeria Baseball and Softball Federation (NBSF), Ikenna Agu confirmed that the plans have been concluded on the training tour which is billed for early July in Washington DC, in order to boost the performance of the boys in the forthcoming competition.
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Federation has hinted that Rosebud College would be the team’s camp while in the United States.
The Federation added that it is looking for the best in terms of performance for the team which is why they have gone for the best, adding that some other nations that will be coming for the meet in China have also settled for the United States.
According to Agu, “I strongly believe that those of them that will finally make it to Taipei can boldly beat their chest and say that it’s a deserved one.”
Explaining further the necessity of the training tour for the young lads, the Technical Adviser of the team, Gerard Hall said all necessary exposure needs to be given to the team so that countries like Cuba, Venezuela, China, Taiwan and the United States will not intimidate the National Team of Nigeria at the meet.
