Fisheries Agency Director-General James Sha (沙志一) yesterday said the recent Taiwan-Japan fishing pact shows how Taiwan and the Philippines could resolve their long-standing dispute over fishing rights in their overlapping exclusive economic zones.
The Taiwan-Japan agreement designates an area in overlapping waters in which fishermen from both sides can operate freely, Sha said.
This could serve as a model for addressing a similar dispute with Manila, which has flared up since a Taiwanese fisherman was shot on May 9, he said in an interview with the Philippine TV network GMA and the Taiwanese media.
A joint patrol of the Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources strafed the Taiwanese fishing boat, the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28, while it was operating in the overlapping exclusive economic zones of the two countries. Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成), 65, was killed in the incident.
Sha said the records from the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28’s voyage data recorder (VDR) showed that it was not trespassing in the Philippines’ territorial waters when the attack occurred.
“The incident took place within the Republic of China’s exclusive economic zone, not in Philippine territorial waters,” he said, denying reports in the Philippine media that the boat had been poaching in Philippine territory.
The patrol that opened fire on the fishing boat did not board the vessel to see if there were any casualties after the shooting, Sha said.
More than 50 bullet holes were found in the boat after it was towed back to Taiwan, he said.
In response to questions from the GMA, Sha displayed a photograph of the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28’s log, which he said proved that the vessel had not entered the Philippines’ territorial waters since it left Pingtung County on May 4.
Asked about the precision of the recording equipment, Sha said the VDR has a 90 percent accuracy to within 7m.
One of the purposes of installing VDRs on Taiwanese fishing boats is to pinpoint their location in the event of fishing disputes, Sha said.
“This would be important evidence for us to determine the location,” he added.
The VDRs are usually sealed once they are installed and are constantly checked by Fisheries Agency officials, Sha said.
If a VDR was found to have been tampered with, the boat owner will be punished, he said.
COSTLY TECH FAILURE: More than 25,000 files for nearly 8,000 students from 81 schools were lost when system administrators updated a server, the Ministry of Education said The academic records of 7,854 high-school students have been lost due to a hard-drive failure, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The records were being stored at National Chi Nan University, which was commissioned by the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration to host a computer server of student portfolios that universities could access to evaluate their applications. Under a program introduced in 2019 for high-school students starting that year, students are to create portfolios to be used for university applications, which include their grades, extracurricular activities and other information related to their character and achievements. System administrators discovered that files were missing when rebooting
CONFUSING RESULTS: A New Taipei City worker tested positive for COVID-19 in a rapid test and a PCR test, but negative in a traditional nucleic acid test, the CECC said Travelers from Bangladesh, Brazil and Peru are no longer required to quarantine at a government center, and from Saturday can choose to quarantine at hotels, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The three nations are no longer considered “key high-risk countries,” as their COVID-19 case numbers have continued to fall, the CECC said, adding that no travelers from these countries have been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 in the past two months. The revised classification would allow travelers from the three countries to choose where they stay during their mandatory 14-day quarantine, although they would be required to pay
Paraguay, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, three of the 15 UN members that have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, voiced support at the UN General Assembly on Friday for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN. In a video played at the 76th session of the General Assembly in New York, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez said that universality is a basic principle of the UN, and based on that principle, “we support the inclusion of Taiwan within the United Nations system.” Taiwan lost its UN seat in 1971, when most countries shifted recognition to Beijing. Belizian Prime Minister John Briceno on Friday attended
ONE NEW DOMESTIC CASE: The CECC confirmed the COVID-19 case based on an antibody test, despite other tests indicating that the woman was likely not infectious The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) would ease COVID-19 restrictions depending on the vaccination rate and other factors, but lowering the level 2 COVID-19 alert would require more careful consideration, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said yesterday. In its decision of when to lower the alert, the center would take into account Taiwan’s first-dose COVID-19 vaccination rate, with the aim to reach 60 percent, people’s compliance with disease prevention measures and the general COVID-19 situation in the nation, Chen told the CECC’s daily news conference. The center would take “a more rigorous approach” when making
RSS