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It's all happening in Taiwan
By MALUM NALU
It was all happening in Taiwan last week as I visited that country
for the second time in a month to attend another APEC workshop
on E-commerce.
The APEC One Village One Product (OVOP) Training Workshop on
E-commerce in Taipei from August 20-24, sought to assist
enterprises in local cultural industries in the APEC region to
sell their products overseas through E-commerce.
Outside from the hectic workshop schedule, a massive typhoon, an
aircraft explosion, and politics all featured prominently in the
news in Taiwan that week.
On Saturday August 18, while in transit through Singapore, PNG
Tourism Promotion Authority IT officer Douglas Keari and I heard
on the news that a typhoon of huge proportions had hit Taiwan
and that several flights to Taipei had been cancelled.
Early the next morning, we bit the bullet and caught a taxi to
Changi Airport, where we boarded a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777
bound for Taipei.
It was only when we were airborne that we realised that it was
not going to be smooth flying all the day.
The weather was bad, and when I say bad, I mean lots of dark
clouds, no sun, plenty of thunder and lightning.
The pilot, a Singaporean Indian, announced that there were still
remnants of the previous day's Typhoon Sepat along the
Singapore-Taipei route and we should expect a lot of turbulence.
For me, someone who is not at all comfortable with air
turbulence, it was four hours of torture all the way from
Singapore to Taipei.
I must admit that I said my prayers and thought of my four young
children, particularly my wonderful two-month-old baby son,
during the entire flight.
From the Phillipines, where Typhoon Sepat started, to Taiwan the
turbulence increased and the big Boeing 777 started shaking like
a leaf.
Thunder and lightning was everywhere as we descended into Taipei
and boy, was I happy, that we made it to Taiwan in one piece.
We later found out that Typhoon Sepat lashed Taiwan with strong
winds and torrential rain the previous day, cutting power
supplies to 95,000 homes, injuring five people and forcing more
than a thousand others to evacuate.
Typhoon Sepat's strong winds and torrential rain left behind a
trail of devastation, causing over NT$1 billion in losses to the
agricultural, fishing, and animal-raising sectors.
The typhoon, which had already caused flooding in the
Phillipines, prompted airlines to cancel flights.
It later caused massive destruction and loss of life in Southern
China, the next place in its path.
The weather continued to remain bad for most of the week.
On Monday August 20, Taiwan carrier China Airlines suffered
another blot on its chequered reputation when a Boeing 737-800
exploded and burst into flames after landing at Naha Airport at
Okinawa in Japan.
The plane's 157 passengers and eight-member crew barely escaped
with their lives when a fire engulfed the Boeing 737-800 on the
tarmac of Naha Airport as it pulled into a parking spot after
arriving from Taiwan.
By the time the fire had been extinguished an hour later, the
fuselage was little more than a charred, broken-up skeleton.
Although all escaped this time, China Airlines has reported nine
fatal accidents since 1970.
The last was in May 2002 when a China Airlines Boeing 747-200
with 225 people on board disintegrated in mid-air and plunged
into the Taiwan Straits about 20 minutes after taking off from
Taoyuan Airport bound for Hong Kong.
There were no survivors.
On Tuesday August 21, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian did not
get off his presidential plane during a transit stop in
Anchorage, Alasaka, in protest at Washington's refusal to allow
him to stop in the continental United States on his way to
Central America.
Although Chen did not disembark after his Boeing 747 arrived in
Anchorage at 2.10am local time, he did receive a visit from
honorary AIT Chairman William Brown and Alaska Lieutenant
Governor Sean Parnell.
The United States is believed to have restricted Chen to a
transit stop in either Alaska or Hawaii on his way to Honduras
for a summit meeting with Taiwan's Central American allies
because of its displeasure over his push for a referendum on
Taiwan's joining the United Nations under the name "Taiwan".
But Chen told Brown that Taiwan's bid to enter the United
Nations was supported by the vast majority of Taiwan's people
and said the uncomfortable, undignified and unsatisfactory
transit arrangements punished Taiwan's 23 million people and not
him personally.
These were some of the major headlines in Taiwan - one of the
most-prosperous and high-tech countries in the world - during
our stay last week.
 
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