The USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group's visit to Hong Kong has nothing to do with the cross-strait situation, and is merely to allow the group's sailors to spend their Christmas vacation in the harbor city, a US navy commander said yesterday. \nChina's Xinhua News Agency yesterday reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group arrived in the port of Hong Kong yesterday. \nThe group's plan to stay in Hong Kong for three or four days is simply to give sailors a chance to visit the city, as many of the US service members have never visited the former British colony. \nAlso, Hong Kong is one of the best harbors in the Pacific, Rear Admiral Doug Crowder, chief commander of the group, was quoted by the Chinese agencies as saying. \nSECURITY CONCERNS \nAsked which harbor is the group's next destination, Crowder declined to comment based on security concerns. \nAccording to the aircraft carrier's spokesman, the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group, including the aircraft carrier itself, as well as three escort ships, will stay in Hong Kong for three to four days. \nWEATHER \nLocal weather conditions will be the deciding factor for when the four vessels decide to leave. \nThe battle group has a total of 6,500 sailors and it was the first time for most of them to visit Hong Kong. \nThe USS Abraham Lincoln is US' fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. \nThe Abraham Lincoln's keel was laid on Nov. 3, 1984 in Newport News, Virginia. Four years later the ship was christened and began a series of performance trials leading up to commissioning in Norfolk, Virginia on Nov. 11, 1989.
PHOTO: AP
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學：兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
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