Environmentalists from Taiwan and China met on the outlying island of Kinmen yesterday to discuss emergency preparedness for oil spills, as marine pollution emerges as a major issue following since the launch of direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait.
The environmental seminar, held at the National Kinmen Institute of Technology, discussed response strategies for possible oil spill emergencies in the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
Speaking at the opening session, Fu Kun-cheng (傅崑成), director of the university’s Ocean Affairs Research Center, said that ships plying the Taiwan Strait travel in a north-south direction and that the number of vessels on the route has increased steadily since the opening of direct cross-strait shipping links.
“Against this backdrop, the probability of marine accidents has increased and we are holding this seminar as the first step toward cross-strait cooperation in the field of environmental protection,” Fu said.
He said the seminar should spur the establishment of a cross-strait cooperative mechanism for oil-spill prevention and emergency response mechanisms.
Chen Hsien-heng (陳咸亨), director of the Environmental Protection Administration’s Water Quality Protection Bureau, said that five vessels were grounded in waters off Taiwan’s southwestern coast during Typhoon Morakot in early August.
“Fortunately, there were no serious oil spills from those ships, but this should serve as a warning. With an average of 1,000 ships now plying the Taiwan Strait each day, we should be better prepared to tackle oil spills and other emergencies,” Chen said.
The two-day seminar has brought together some 120 marine pollution experts and academics from Taiwan and China to exchange views and experiences in addressing oil spill issues.
The 40-member Chinese delegation is headed by Li Yi (李義), deputy chairman of the ship pollution commission under the Chinese Institute of Navigation.
Seventeen papers on oil slick legislation on both sides, notable oil spills, emergency response strategies and technologies, and possible cross-strait cooperation on oil spill response will be presented and discussed at the symposium.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400