Taiwan has set up a new international disaster-management alliance, a modest diplomatic win for a country locked out of the UN system.

• The World Alliance for Disaster Management (WADM) formally launched on 19 September with 13 member states, 17 observers and 11 partners.
• Members are Taiwan, 11 diplomatic allies and Somaliland; local governments from the US, Japan, Britain, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines joined as observers, which can speak but not vote.
• The alliance bundles disaster-cooperation work Taiwan already ran piecemeal through different ministries — weather and radar sharing with the Philippines, water research with Belize, maritime safety with the Marshall Islands and Palau.
• Its four pillars are joint training, joint drills, mutual support and information sharing, with at least one training event a year and a focus on AI-based hazard warnings, early-warning systems and satellite sensing.
• The fire agency's training centre in Nantou's Zhushan — Asia's largest and the world's third-largest facility of its kind — becomes the hub for cross-border training.

Outlook: Taiwan's fire agency chief takes over as first secretary-general and will build a standing secretariat, with regular member assemblies and cross-border drills to follow.