The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has sought assistance from the UK government to search for five Filipino crew members who have been missing after a Taiwan-registered fishing boat caught fire on Monday last week off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
Sixty-four of the 69 people on board the fishing boat named Jun Rong (俊榮號) were rescued and taken to safety in Port Montevideo, Uruguay, but the other five, all confirmed to be Filipinos, have not been found, Kaohsiung’s Marine Bureau said yesterday.
Rescue personnel from the Falkland Islands will continue to search for the missing crew members, it said.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of the Maritime Port Bureau
Jun Rong (俊榮) fishing company, which owns the Kaohsiung-registered boat, will try to help the 64 rescued people return to their home countries, the bureau said, adding that it would provide any assistance necessary.
The crew on the 998-tonne fishing boat comprised four Taiwanese, 22 Filipinos, 28 Indonesians, one Chinese, nine Vietnamese and five Burmese, the bureau said.
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday last week issued a statement saying it remained hopeful that the five missing Filipinos would be found.
Officials at the Philippine embassy in the UK are coordinating with British authorities over the incident, the Maritime Bulletin reported on Friday.
Falkland Island authorities have confirmed that the Taiwanese boat caught fire about 110km north of the capital, Stanley, the South Atlantic News Agency Merco Press reported on Tuesday last week.
The cause of the fire was still unknown, the Taiwan Tuna Purse Seiners Association said yesterday.
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it is closely monitoring developments in Venezuela, and would continue to cooperate with democratic allies and work together for regional and global security, stability, and prosperity. The remarks came after the US on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was later flown to New York along with his wife. The pair face US charges related to drug trafficking and alleged cooperation with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro has denied the allegations. The ministry said that it is closely monitoring the political and economic situation
UNRELENTING: China attempted cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure 2.63 million times per day last year, up from 1.23 million in 2023, the NSB said China’s cyberarmy has long engaged in cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, employing diverse and evolving tactics, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday, adding that cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure last year increased 10-fold compared with the previous year. The NSB yesterday released a report titled Analysis on China’s Cyber Threats to Taiwan’s Critical Infrastructure in 2025, outlining the number of cyberattacks, major tactics and hacker groups. Taiwan’s national intelligence community identified a large number of cybersecurity incidents last year, the bureau said in a statement. China’s cyberarmy last year launched an average of 2.63 million intrusion attempts per day targeting Taiwan’s critical
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
RSS