US President George W. Bush unveiled new aid for the typhoon-battered Philippines and praised Vietnam’s “noteworthy” progress on religious freedom in talks on Tuesday with their visiting leaders.
Bush offered “deep condolences” to Philippine President Gloria Arroyo over devastating Typhoon Fengshen and said he was sending a US aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, and other US Navy resources to help with relief efforts.
“This is a time where America needs to step up, and we will,” he told her as they met in the Oval Office. “We are happy to do it, we want to help our friends in a time of need.”
Arroyo, whose popularity is the lowest in three years as soaring prices slow growth and slash incomes, spoke in Filipino, which was not translated.
Afterwards, Bush joked: “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Later, he met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, praising Vietnam’s “noteworthy” progress on religious freedoms amid a flurry of US-Vietnam trade deals and vows of closer cooperation on issues like climate change.
“We talked about freedom, religious and political freedom,” Bush said. “And I told the prime minister that I thought the strides the government is making towards religious freedom is noteworthy and I appreciated the efforts that he and his government are making.”
Dung, speaking through an interpreter, made no mention of rights among the issues they had discussed and said Bush had “reiterated his support for Vietnam’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.”
Bush’s upbeat tone seemed to clash with the US State Department’s assessment on the human rights picture in Vietnam last year, which cited reports of limits on religious meetings and celebrations and the publication of religious texts.
“Overall respect for religious freedom improved during the year, but the government persisted in placing restrictions on the political activities of religious groups,” said the report, which was published in March.
Dung said he and Bush had agreed to bolster cooperation on economic, education, environment, science, defense and security issues.
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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‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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