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One of the top stories from this past week was President Ma Ying-jeou’s meeting with President-elect Tsai Ing-wen to discuss the upcoming transition of power.
During the meeting on Wednesday, Ma congratulated Tsai on becoming Taiwan’s first female president. Ma said that her election marks the third successful transfer of power between political parties in Taiwan’s history. Ma said he looks forward to seeing the two parties work together.
Tsai said that her meeting with Ma showed there was potential for cooperation between Taiwan’s two main political parties.
Tsai’s inauguration will take place on May 20.
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Also this past week, Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn announced that it will acquire Japan’s Sharp corporation. The announcement came Wednesday at a press conference held at the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Foxconn will acquire 66% of Sharp’s stocks and assets for a total of US$3.46 billion. That’s US$875.8 million lower than the stocks’ trading value.
In a press release, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou also said that he is very excited about the acquisition and the prospect of working with Sharp’s expertise.
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And finally, this past week, environmental protection authorities were still trying to figure out how to remove the remaining oil from a grounded ship off the northern coast of Taiwan.
The ship – the TS Taipei -- went aground on March 10 after it lost power during a storm. The ship later split in two. Most of the oil on board has already been pumped out, but officials say the remaining oil cannot be removed with pumps.
On Friday, Premier Chang San-cheng inspected work on the ship. He said that although a new strategy is needed to remove the rest of the oil, for now the leak has been stopped.
The premier also said that eight containers considered to be dangerous have been removed from the deck of the vessel by crane. He said they are now ahead of schedule in their efforts to unload the rest of the containers from the ship. The premier said he hopes that the work can be completed within the next week, while the weather conditions are stable.
Chang said the Council of Agriculture has confirmed that fish stocks near the site of the wreckage show no signs of contamination. But he said that the council and a local fishermen’s association are moving to compensate those who were affected by damage to the intertidal zone.