The Council of Agriculture said yesterday that it will offer all necessary assistance to a Taiwan fishing vessel being detained in Russia, which allegedly trespassed into Russian waters near the Kuril Islands.
The council's Fishery Administration said it is coordinating with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ship's owner and the Taiwan Squid Fishing Industry Association to offer timely assistance to the detained Kaohsiung-registered fishing vessel and its crew.
According to council officials, the captain of the Cheng Huei No. 1 deep-sea fishing vessel already briefed the ship's owner on the latest situation.
Both the ship and all crew members are safe, the officials said, adding that they are now staying in the Shikotan Island and may have to stand trial. The vessel has 36 crew members, including five from Taiwan, 23 from China, four from Vietnam and four from the Philippines.
The ship owner has asked its agent to hire a lawyer to assist in handling the case, council officials said, adding that Taiwan's representative office in Moscow will also offer assistance. The ship owner could face a fine for illegally operating in Russia's fishing waters.
The officials said local fishing vessels usually operate in the open seas east of Russia and northeast of Japan between July and November for saury fishing. When the saury fishing season began this year, some 70 Taiwan deep-sea fishing vessels headed for the region.
Saury has been one of Taiwan's major fish staples. Council officials urged local fishermen to stay alert and abide by international fishing regulations to avoid intruding into foreign territorial waters. The Fishery Administration will also strengthen monitoring of Taiwan's deep-sea fishing operations and make every possible effort to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, the officials said.
According to Russian media reports, the Cheng Huei No. 1 trespassed into Russian waters near the Kuril Islands Tuesday and was chased by a Russian vessel after it refused to stop. The Russian patrol boat managed to intercept the ship after it was fired upon, the reports said. Russian TV footage showed an illegal fish catch aboard the ship as well as the damage the vessel sustained from gunfire.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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