TAIWAN

A TransAsia plane crashes in Taiwan river, killing at least 23 people. A TransAsia Airways flight in Taiwan carrying 58 passengers and crew careened past buildings, clipped a highway and crashed into a shallow stream, killing at least 23 people.

TransAsia GE 235, a domestic flight from Taipei to Kinmen – a small archipelago near mainland China – crashed at 10.56am local time, according to Taiwan’s aviation council, about three minutes after it took off. Astonishing dash-cam videos posted online showed the turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft in its final airborne moments, turning vertical over a highway and clipping a taxi cab and a bridge with its left wing.

The last communication from one of the aircraft’s pilots was “Mayday Mayday engine flameout”, according to an air traffic control recording on liveatc.net.

A flameout occurs when the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted or when there is faulty combustion, resulting in an engine failure.

The flight’s black box has been recovered, according to local media.

“Weather conditions were good and the pilot had 14,000 hours of flying hours and the co-pilot 4,000 hours,” Lin Zhiming, a representative from Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Authority, told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday’s crash is the second by a TransAsia flight within the past six months — in July 2014, TransAsia flight ATR-72 crashed while attempting to land in the Penghu Islands soon after a typhoon, killing 48 people. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Taiwan (Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó) is a sovereign state in East Asia. The Republic of China, originally based in mainland China, now governs the island of Taiwan, which makes up over 99% of its territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population density of 648 people per km2 in March 2015. Taipei is the seat of the central government, and together with the surrounding cities of New Taipei and Keelung forms the largest metropolitan area on the island.

The island of Taiwan (formerly known as "Formosa") was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines until the Dutch and Spanish settlement during the Age of Discovery in the 17th century, when Han Chinese began immigrating to the island. In 1662, the pro-Ming loyalist Koxinga expelled the Dutch and established the first Han Chinese polity on the island, the Kingdom of Tungning. The Qing dynasty of China later defeated the kingdom and annexed Taiwan. By the time Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895, the majority of Taiwan's inhabitants were Han Chinese either by ancestry or by assimilation. The Republic of China (ROC) was established in mainland China in 1912. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the ROC assumed its control of Taiwan. Following the Chinese civil war, the Communist Party of China took full control of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The ROC relocated its government to Taiwan, and its jurisdiction became limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. Despite this, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat via Resolution 2758 and the ROC lost its UN membership. International recognition of the ROC has gradually eroded as most countries switched recognition to the PRC. 21 UN member states and the Holy See currently maintain official diplomatic relations with the ROC. It has unofficial ties with most other states via its representative offices.

Ongoing issues of Cross-Strait relations as well as political status of Taiwan are major factors of contention in Taiwanese politics and a cause of social and political division among political parties and their respective supporters within the country. Constitutionally, there is dispute over whether the ROC still lays claim to the sovereignty over all of "China", in a definition that includes mainland China and Outer Mongolia based on its pre-1949 territories, but the ROC has not made retaking mainland China a political goal since 1992. However, the government's stance on defining its political position of relation with China largely depends on which political coalition is in charge. Meanwhile, the PRC also asserts itself to be the sole legal representation of China and claims Taiwan as its 23rd province to be under its sovereignty, denying the status and existence of ROC as a sovereign state. The PRC has threatened the use of military force as a response to any formal declaration of Taiwanese independence, or if it deems peaceful reunification no longer possible.

During the latter half of the 20th century, Taiwan experienced rapid economic growth and industrialization and is now an advanced industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Taiwan evolved into a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage. Taiwan is one of the Four Asian Tigers and a member of the WTO and APEC. The 21st-largest economy in the world, its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwan is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, and human development.

The total area of the current jurisdiction of the Republic of China is 36,193 km2 (13,974 sq mi), making it the world's 137th-largest country/dependency, smaller than Switzerland and larger than Belgium.

The island of Taiwan lies some 180 kilometres (110 mi) off the southeastern coast of mainland China, which lies across the Taiwan Strait, and has an area of 35,883 km2 (13,855 sq mi). The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. All are arms of the Pacific Ocean. The shape of the main island of Taiwan is similar to a sweet potato seen in a south-to-north direction, and therefore, Taiwanese (especially Min Nan speakers) often call themselves "children of the Sweet Potato."

The island is characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of rugged mountains running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island, and the flat to gently rolling Chianan Plains in the west that are also home to most of Taiwan's population. Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain) at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft); Taiwan is the world's fourth-highest island.

The Penghu Islands, 50 km (31.1 mi) west of the main island, have an area of 126.9 km2 (49.0 sq mi). More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian, with a total area of 180.5 km2 (69.7 sq mi), and the Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, with a total area of 2.9 km2 (1.1 sq mi) and no permanent inhabitants.

The island of Taiwan lies in a complex tectonic area between the Yangtze Plate to the west and north, the Okinawa Plate on the north-east, and the Philippine Mobile Belt on the east and south. The upper part of the crust on the island is primarily made up of a series of terranes, mostly old island arcs which have been forced together by the collision of the forerunners of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. These have been further uplifted as a result of the detachment of a portion of the Eurasian Plate as it was subducted beneath remnants of the Philippine Sea Plate, a process which left the crust under Taiwan more buoyant.

The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Trough portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively.

The major seismic faults in Taiwan correspond to the various suture zones between the various terranes. These have produced major quakes throughout the history of the island. On 21 September 1999, a 7.3 quake known as the "921 earthquake" killed more than 2,400 people. The seismic hazard map for Taiwan by the USGS shows 9/10 of the island as the highest rating (most hazardous).

Miss Chinese Taipei or Miss Republic of China or Miss Taiwan is an annual national beauty pageant that selects the Taiwanese representative for Miss Universe. In addition, the Miss Chinese Taipei competition is used to select the official candidates to represent the country at other International pageants, seven of them are Miss World, Miss Earth, Miss International, Miss Supranational, Miss Asia Pacific, Miss Intercontinental pageant and Miss Grand International.

Miss Chinese Taipei
1961	Lily Wang Li-Ling	1962	Helen Liu Shiu-Man	1964	Lana Yu Yi
1988	Jade Hu Fei-Tsui	1989	Chen Yen Ping	1990	Wen Tzui-Pin
1991	Lin Shu-Chuan	1992	Shih Hsiu Chieh	1993	Virginia Long Wei-Yen
1994	Joanne Wu Chung-Chun	1995	Liao Chia-Yi	1996	Chen Hsiao-Fen
1997	Chiou Hai Ta	1998	Annie Tsai	1999	Wang Wan-Fei
2000	Chang Lei-Ann	2001	Chiang Hsin-Ting	2002	Beverly Chen Szu-Yu
2003	Janie Hsieh Yu-Chen	2004	Dorothy Chu Yi-Hui	2005	Hsu Su-Jung
2006	Liu Tzu-Hsuan	2007	Hung Tzu-Wei	2008	Jamie LIN Chieh-min
2009	Chen Yi-Chih	2010	Chen Yi-Wei	2011	Ying Kuei Li
2012	Yu Nian-yu	2013	Chang Shao-Chuan	2014	Yang Yuyao

PAGEANT WITH A PURPOSE - Beauty competitions gain media attention for contestants and the objects of the pageant. The object of the Miss Ocean contest it to draw attention to: 1. Climate Change, 2. Ocean Pollution, and 3. Equal rights for all citizens of planet earth. Click on the picture above to read the (draft) rules. You can also have your say on how the competition should be formatted to truly achieve the stated objects.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Taiwan
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/
http://www.taiwan.gov.tw/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/taiwan
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/04/taiwan-plane-crash-lands-in-river