The Council of Marine Affairs, to be established next month, is to be housed in Kaohsiung’s Software Technology Park, the Cabinet said.
The council, which is to oversee the offices of marine conservation and research, as well as the Coast Guard Administration, would be the first central government department in Kaohsiung.
The council is to rent the space for four years at a cost of NT$79.9 million (US$2.74 million), said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Asked whether the council would seek to purchase its own office space, the official said that while the decision would require further planning, the government would likely purchase an office building if more central government departments move to the city.
While the coast guard office would remain in Taipei, council officials, conservationists and researchers would be stationed at the Kaohsiung office, the official said, adding that the three groups would work together as a single department.
The office is to be in the building that houses Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s research and development facilities, the official said.
The lease was signed last month and renovations are under way, the official said.
The location was chosen because the Ministry of Science and Technology has a marine technology research center in the city, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said.
Since the responsibilities of the new council are to overlap with those of the center, the government hopes to merge the two to increase their efficiency, he added.
Meanwhile, preparations for the committee’s establishment are being handled mostly by the coast guard, although its responsibilities would go far beyond those traditionally handled by the coast guard, sources said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching