Taipei and Manila are still seeking to sign an agreement to cooperate on law enforcement in fishery matters in their overlapping economic waters as soon as possible, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Asked about progress toward such a pact, ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said that “both countries hope the agreement will be signed as soon as possible,” without providing an estimated timetable.
In an effort to accelerate the process, a group of Taiwanese officials visited the Philippines last month to conduct negotiations on related issues with their Philippine counterparts, she added.
The two sides discussed issues such as the scope of law enforcement by the respective authorities and bilateral channels of communication, she added.
Earlier this month, Manila Economic and Culture Office Managing Director Antonio Basilio said he was optimistic that the agreement would be signed soon.
Last month, he said the pact could be signed by the end of this month.
The agreement covers a consensus reached by the two nations to refrain from the use of force or violence when patrolling fishing grounds, to establish a mechanism for informing each other in the event of a fishery incident and to release detained fishermen and boats as soon as possible.
Taiwan and the Philippines have been negotiating the pact since late 2013 — one of a series of steps taken to improve relations after Philippine Coast Guard officers opened fire on a Taiwanese commercial fishing boat on May 9, 2013, in waters where the two nations’ exclusive economic zones overlap, killing a Taiwanese fisherman.
The agreement also is to include the establishment of a working group of officials from the two countries who would deal with remaining issues and seek consensus, Kao said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS