Council of Agriculture Minister Lee Ching-lung (
Lee said the movement of the pandas from China to Taiwan was an issue for conservationists and other specialists, and that the council would not attach any preconditions to a transfer.
After former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
Taiwan is a member of the global village, Lee said, and should abide by international animal conservation regulations.
If the Chinese government officially proposed sending pandas to Taiwan, the council would demand from Beijing a panda export permit issued by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Lee said.
As Taiwan has never hosted pandas, the council has maintained a cautious attitude, inviting local and overseas experts to evaluate which organization or zoo is capable of providing the animals with appropriate care.
As soon as Beijing applies to export the pandas, the evaluation team will begin its work. If necessary, Taiwanese officials could visit China to better understand the animals' requirements.
Taipei has been making a great effort to be awarded the right to house the pandas, Lee said, and he stressed that he would be very glad to discuss the issue with Ma.
Officials from a KMT think tank and the Taipei Zoo left for Sichuan Province on Friday to attend a "panda symposium," triggering a battle between Taipei and Taichung to secure the animals.
CLONING
Meanwhile, Lee said Taiwan had scored a major breakthrough in animal cloning by successfully cloning an "economic animal."
After years of effort, Lee said, the council had succeeded in using somatic cells to clone the animal that reportedly has economic and medicinal value.
Lee claimed that the council-developed technology is unique.
However, he would not reveal what kind of animal had been cloned. He only said that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will "solve the riddle" early next month, and that the animals were neither dogs nor cats and of great potential value.
He further said the cloned animals are edible and safe, adding that they are not genetically modified and have instead been reproduced from somatic cells.
Lee said the council had done all the research itself, but some of the team members had also traveled to Britain for training.
"It took seven to eight years to come to this point at a cost of less than NT$100 million [US$3.1 million]. Thanks to the orientation of our research, we have made tremendous headway," Lee said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS