A Taiwanese fishing boat was detained by Japanese authorities on Monday for fishing in its Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) but will soon be released after it agreed to pay a fine, an official said.
The owner of the fishing boat agreed to pay a ¥4 million (US$46,900) fine for fishing in Japan’s EEZ, Chen Tyau-her (陳調和), secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ East Asian Relations Commission said yesterday.
The Shun Fu Yu No. 68 was seized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan in waters deemed by Japanese authorities to be beyond the temporary enforcement line of Taiwan’s EEZ, Chen said.
Chen said Japanese authorities agreed to release the boat after the Suao Agriculture Association had guaranteed that the fishing company would pay the fine without taking the case to court.
The ministry negotiated with the Japanese Coast Guard to reach an agreement, slashing the time needed to settle the case and allow the fishermen to return home, Chen said.
Saying that there have been other incidents of Taiwanese vessels fishing illegally in the disputed waters surrounding the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) Archipelago, Chen said the ministry would work with the Fishery Agency to dissuade fishermen from fishing beyond the temporary enforcement line.
The Taiwanese government established the temporary enforcement line to provide a safe fishing area for Taiwanese fishermen, while Japan also delimited the “middle line” in the overlapping maritime area of the Diaoyutais.
The delimitation by Japan and Taiwan has yet to be accepted by either side.
Taiwan has held 16 rounds of negotiations with Japan on the matter, but the talks ground to a halt when it came to the Diaoyutais issue, Chen said.
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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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