Police arrested a member of Greenpeace yesterday as the environmental organization launched its first ever protest in Taiwan, trying to stop a tuna carrier from leaving port, the group said.
Tipsuda Atichakaro, a Thai citizen, climbed onto an anchor cable dangling from the Lung Yuin, a refrigerated tuna transporter, shortly before it was to leave Greater Kaohsiung, Greenpeace said.
She took turns with another activist chaining herself to the cable, sparking a three-hour standoff with police, which ended when officers arrested her on charges of endangering public safety. The other protester was not detained.
“She will be transferred to prosecutors,” an officer with the Greater Kaohsiung harbor police said.
The Lung Yuin, a 3,431 tonne Taiwanese-owned vessel registered in Vanuatu and used to store and transport tuna catch, has “a history of involvement in illegal fishing operations,” Greenpeace said.
“Reefers like the Lung Yuin facilitate the large-scale tuna plunder of the Pacific region,” Greenpeace East Asia Oceans campaigner Kao Yu-fen (高于棻) said. “It should not be allowed to use Taiwanese ports unless it can at least comply to simple requirements that it register its operations with Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency.”
Greenpeace demanded Taiwanese authorities immediately investigate what it referred to as the vessel’s “illegal practices.”
The ship’s owner, Wang Shung-lung (王順隆), denied the accusations, saying the vessel was registered with international bodies, such as the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, which manages the tuna resources in the Eastern Pacific region.
“We also reported to the Fisheries Agency in advance of the scheduled journey to Fiji this time,” he said.
Wang, whose family operates the ship along with 12 other tuna fishing vessels, was unhappy with the methods chosen by the Greenpeace activists.
“I respect their appeal calling for preserving marine reserves. Would that be good to me if the fish resources became depleted?” he said.
“But they shouldn’t take such irrational action. It isn’t helpful for their cause at all,” he added.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS