Taiwan and Japan have said they will cooperate in discussions over the Okinotori atoll fishery dispute, hoping to meet by the end of July, Cabinet spokesperson Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday.
The government’s position is that disputes should be resolved through negotiation, Tung said.
The government believes that maintaining an amicable relationship with Japan is an important part of Taiwan’s overall foreign policy and that the two sides should not take any action that could increase bilateral tension, but should actively engage in constructive dialogue on maritime affairs, he said.
Based on a common understanding of the need to maintain the rapport between Taiwan and Japan, the two sides have decided to establish a dialogue under the existing framework of Taiwan’s Association of East Asian Relations and Japan’s Interchange Association, he said.
Besides fishery cooperation, the talks will also cover issues such as environmental protection, scientific research and maritime emergency rescue, Tung said.
The Okinotori dispute erupted after a Taiwanese fishing boat was last month detained by Japan on the high seas near the Japan-controlled atoll.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration lodged a strong protest with Japan after the Japan Coast Guard refused to release the boat until the owner had paid a security deposit of ¥6 million (US$54,788).
Japan claims the atoll is an island and that it is therefore entitled to a 200 nautical mile (370km) exclusive economic zone.
Taiwan says that it is not an island because it cannot sustain human habitation, and accused Japan of using land reclamation to expand the atoll.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,