Greenpeace Taiwan yesterday erected a sculpture of a hand holding a yellow card in front of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters in Taipei, urging the two parties to address fisheries policy after Taiwan was given a yellow card warning over illegal fishing activities in September.
The European Commission in October identified Taiwan as an uncooperative nation in the fight against illegal fishing after a Taiwanese ship was found to have broken a shark-fin harvest law in waters near Papua New Guinea.
Taiwan’s aquatic products could be banned in EU markets if the nation is not able to resolve the issue in six months.
Photo: Chen Wei-han, Taipei Times
Greenpeace Taiwan said that policies tabled by the two parties did not address illegal fishing, distant fishing management or remedy measures in response to the yellow card warning, with the KMT’s platform leaning toward tourism and the DPP’s toward offshore energy and marine current power development.
The organization called on the parties to revise the Fisheries Act (漁業法) to clamp down on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, establish a traceability system for aquatic products and ensure information transparency.
The organization’s ocean campaigner Lisa Tsai (蔡佩芸) said: “We have not seen any specific policy design on fisheries resources management on a national scale despite the two parties’ and the Fisheries Agency’s repeated pledges to do so. That is why we are here today, to urge them to honor their pledge.”
DPP official Yang Chang-chen (楊長鎮) said that the party supports the reformation of the fishing industry and would move to synchronizing national regulations with international standards, as well as enacting soft laws.
KMT official Huang Po-chung (黃柏均) said that the KMT accepts the group’s demands and the party also proposed to set up an environmentally friendly fishing fleet at each of the nation’s fishing villages to protect fishery resources and human rights.
Fisheries Agency Deputy Director Huang Hung-yan (黃鴻燕) said the agency is revising the act in accordance with the EU standards by substantially raising the fine limit for illegal fishing, and it would submit the draft amendment to the Legislative Yuan for review in the next legislative session in February.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS