Most members of Taiwan's technical mission in Haiti have moved to the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, to avoid the increasingly violent opposition movement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Apart from the mission leader and several aides, the members and their families have left the mission compound for the Haitian capital, said ministry spokesman Richard Shih (
So far the 46 ROC citizens and staff at Taiwan's embassy in Port-au-Prince have been unharmed, he said.
Shih said the government believed the conflict in Haiti "would not hurt the relationship between Taiwan and Haiti," one of Taiwan's 14 allies in Latin America.
The US, Canada and the Organization of American States are concerned about the situation in Haiti, Shih added.
He said that the fighting has not had much of an impact on most people's lives.
Michel Lu (呂慶龍), former Taiwanese ambassador to Haiti, said widespread poverty has deepened grudges against the Haitian president, Jean Bertrand Aristide.
"It won't be an easy thing to get the opposition movement under control," he said.
But Lu added strife is unlikely to affect the Taiwan-Haiti relationship.
"The US attitude will be crucial to Aristide's survival. The president does not have troops -- that's a big problem for him," Lu said.
Early last month, Aristide told Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) special envoy for the celebration of Haiti's 200th anniversary of independence from France, that he would continue to support Taiwan's bids to join international organizations.
Aristide told Yao he hoped Chen succeeds in his re-election campaign and that he would like to invite Chen to visit Haiti after the March election.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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