Somali pirates, under pressure from the Somali government and clan elders, have agreed to release the 47 Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Filipino and Vietnamese crew on three Taiwanese fishing boats immediately, a newspaper said yesterday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Michel Lu (
"MOFA officials have been involved in the negotiations since Aug. 24 and the situation is getting better," Lu said.
"We have sent out a clear message that we are asking them to release the Taiwanese fishermen unconditionally. In addition, we won't pay a cent of ransom for the release," he said.
Lu said yesterday that the Taiwanese fishermen and their boats were safe at present.
Later yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (
"It is hoped that after two or three days, we'll have news that the public will like to hear," Chen said.
A Chinese-language newspaper yesterday quoted Huang Shun-chang (
Huang said the hostages should have been released on Monday, but the release was delayed due to some misunderstanding, so it should happen yesterday or today, the paper said.
Somali government troops reportedly have surrounded the Taiwanese trawlers guarded by two dozen pirates, and threatened to use force to rescue the hostages.
"Somalia is a Muslim country. Under Islamic law, the punishment for committing crime is the death penalty or cutting off a finger.
"So, under persuasion from clan elders, some pirates have surrendered to government troops," it said.
The three Taiwanese tuna trawlers were seized by Somali pirates at the port of Kismayo on Aug. 16 as they were picking up a fishing licence.
The trawlers carried three Taiwanese officers and 44 crew -- 14 Indonesians, 14 Chinese, 12 Filipinos and four Vietnamese.
Somali rebels demanded US$500,000 for the release of each boat and its crew. If the ransom was not paid, they said, they would start killing one hostage each day.
additional reporting by Chiu Yu-tzu
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS