The government is negotiating with Japan over the nation’s fishing rights in the waters surrounding the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday, adding that he hoped this could yield substantial results in the near future.
Accompanied by Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉), Wang Chin-shih (王進士), Chiu Wen-yen (邱文彥) and Chien Tung-ming (簡東明), Ma made the remark during a visit to the Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) inspection office in Donggang Township (東港) in Pingtung County.
After listening to a brief report on the office’s administrative achievements last year, Ma attended a luncheon with coast guard personnel, during which he touted the agency’s efforts in safeguarding the safety of Taiwanese fishermen operating in waters near the Diaoyutais, also known as the Senkakus in Japan.
“Amid increasing tensions in the South China Sea, the CGA was able to offer timely assistance to a group of Taiwanese fishermen heading from Suao [蘇澳], Yilan County, to the Diaoyutai Islands [in September] last year in an effort to assert the nation’s sovereignty over the disputed archipelago,” Ma said.
Its assistance not only helped bring the privately initiated mission, which triggered an exchange of water-cannon fire between Taiwanese and Japanese patrol vessels, to a peaceful end, but also earned plaudits from Taiwanese fishermen, Ma said.
“It is a nation’s obligation to guarantee the safety and rights of its fishermen, which is something the CGA has been doing through non-military means since its establishment 17 years ago,” Ma said.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
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