The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it had asked its representatives in Tokyo to express their serious concerns to the government there about the a landing by Japanese right-wingers on the disputed Tiaoyutai islands in the East China Sea. \nNine members of Nihon Seinensya (Japan Youth Society) landed on the uninhabited, rocky islet at 7:04am and stayed there for about five hours, according to Japan's coast guard. \n"The members, all men ... said they needed to do maintenance work on a lighthouse on the Uotsuri Island," the official said. \nTaiwan's foreign ministry restated Taiwan's claims to ownership of the islands and protested to the Japanese government against the landing. It demanded the Japanese government prevent similar incidents from happening again. \nThe Nihon Seinensya built the lighthouse in 1978 and it needs to have the batteries replaced this year, the group said on its Web site. \nThey chartered a fishing vessel at Ishigaki Island, some 160km to the south of the disputed islet, and departed late Sunday, the coast guard said. \nThey reached the island using a rubber dinghy. The Japan Coast Guard sent several vessels to monitor the rightists' voyage but declined to specify how many ships were involved. \n"We had been instructing them not to land on the island without approval from the state but they did not listen," the coast guard official said. \nJapan declared the islands as part of its territory in 1895 and they were temporarily put under US control after World War II. They were returned to Japanese rule in 1972. \nThe island chain is claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. \nThe simmering territorial dispute came to the fore in the early 1970s, when China and Taiwan made their claims to the islands after oil deposits were confirmed in the area by a UN agency.
FATAL FIRE: The health department is trying to contact the inspector who visited the site of the illegal nursing home to ask why they did not advise follow-up checks The Taipei City Government yesterday said that a health department inspector last year had visited the site of a long-term care facility in Neihu District (內湖) after receiving a report questioning its status. A fire broke out at the facility on Tuesday afternoon, killing three people. The Taipei Fire Department said that it received a report about a fire on the first floor of a four-story residential building on Kangning Road Sec. 1 at 2:38pm on Tuesday, firefighters arrived at 2:43pm and the fire was put out by 3:07pm. The firefighters found three men in beds and rushed them to hospital for
Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Monday called for security improvements to the MRT, as fare evasion has increased more than 13-fold on the metropolitan railway system over the past five years. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has spoken out against fare evasion and other contraventions of MRT regulations, but since he took office in 2015 the number of contraventions has more than doubled, Wang said, adding that there were 537 cases in 2015 compared with 959 last year. A video was posted to YouTube in June showing people how to evade paying a fare,
FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD: Media speculation has fueled confusion about the KMT’s reasons for skipping a Chinese forum and delaying an AIT meeting, party sources said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday said that it is not seeking to improve relations with the US or China at the expense of the other, and that its relations with the countries would be topic-based. The party has faced questions over its foreign policy after it on Monday last week announced its withdrawal from the annual Straits Forum and delayed planned talks with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The party has also taken a tough stance on the importation of US meat containing ractopamine, while also lambasting China for increasing its military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. Following
Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem. Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday. The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up
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