Ship-borne activists said yesterday they had targeted fishing boats from South Korea, Taiwan and the US in high-seas protests against the “plundering” of tuna in the Pacific.
In the latest confrontation, crew from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza boarded a Taiwanese boat, the Nian Sheng 3, to inspect the catch and then escorted the boat out of international waters, a spokesman said.
The captain of the tuna boat, which also contained hundreds of frozen shark fins and tails, allowed the activists to board, Greenpeace campaign leader Lagi Toribau said by telephone from the Esperanza.
PHOTO: AFP
“Greenpeace are not a violent campaigning organization,” he said, while adding that the activists were prepared to “interfere with their physical fishing activities in order for us to save the last tuna stocks.”
On Sunday, Esperanza crew members set out to a small boat to paint the side of a US vessel, Cape Finisterre, with the words “Tuna Overkill” and asked it to leave international waters, Greenpeace said in a statement.
Last Thursday the group protested alongside the South Korean ship Olympus before activists “confiscated a fish aggregation device” used to attract tuna.
The latest action took place in international waters near the Solomon Islands where “legal fishers and pirates are both plundering Pacific tuna,” Greenpeace said.
Describing tuna as the world’s favorite fish, Toribau said “advances in technology mean large ships are now able to catch as much fish in two days as the fishers of the small Pacific island countries can catch in a year.”
The future of the comparatively healthy western and central Pacific tuna fishery is crucial for small Pacific states. Tuna is the only major economic resource for many, as well as one of the most important food sources.
Currently license fees provide Pacific states a small return of around 5 percent to 6 percent of the US$3 billion annual catch in the region.
Toribau said the fishing carried out by the ships “is technically not illegal but is unregulated,” and Greenpeace was campaigning for the pockets of international waters between the island nations to be declared marine reserves.
The Esperanza was heading for a stopover in the Solomon Islands before returning to international waters to continue the protests, Toribau said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS