The families of the seven missing Taiwanese businessmen in Madagascar called off the aerial search effort yesterday after one Malagasy search crew member died and another was injured on duty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The families are offering a NT$100,000 (US$3,200) reward for locals who find any of the men alive and NT$20,000 if any are found dead. The figure is an astronomical amount for a country where the average daily income is less than US$0.40.
The ministry did not say who would pay the bills of the search mission that reportedly cost up to several thousand US dollars each hour and lasted nearly six days.
MOFA Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said the families of the victims had agreed to call off the aerial search mission because of persistent inclement weather.
A search team commissioned by Madagascar would continue until Antananarivo decided to terminate the efforts, Chen said, adding that MOFA has expressed condolences to the families of the Malagasy men who died and were injured on duty.
The two life vests found in the ocean by a fishing boat would be sent to Antananarivo to be verified if they were worn by any of missing men prior to their disappearance, Chen said, adding that the two representatives from the family and the two MOFA personnel would also leave St. Marie, the island where the boat apparently capsized last Friday.
The seven missing Taiwanese businessmen were on a commercial fishing grounds inspection trip along with one other Taiwanese national, Liu Shou-chih (劉守智), and a Chinese businessman, Li Bo (李波).
The bodies of Liu and Li were retrieved on Monday about 18km away from where the fishing boat apparently capsized. One Malagasy technician and a cook were successfully rescued but MOFA has been barred from questioning them.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS