Marshall Islands President Kessai Note is scheduled to arrive in Taipei today for a five-day visit, his sixth in the past five years.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Note would meet President Chen Shui-bian (
Note first visited Taiwan in May 2002, and then in May and December 2004. Note and his wife visited at Chen's invitation in April 2005 and November last year.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman David Wang (
A source told the Taipei Times that Note would play golf with former presidential advisor Koo Kwan-min (
As Chen is scheduled to visit the Marshall Islands in October, Wang said that Note was expected to discuss details of the upcoming Taiwan Pacific Allies Summit with Chen during their meeting.
Wang confirmed yesterday that Taiwan had promised to donate US$5 million to the Marshall Islands to build facilities for the summit to be held in the capital, Majuro, in October.
The facilities will be donated to the Marshall Islands following the summit, he said.
The first summit of Taiwanese allies was held in Palau in September last year, bringing Chen together with the heads of the six Pacific island states holding diplomatic ties with Taipei. They are the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati.
Wang declined to say what Taiwan's annual grants to the Marshall Islands amounted to, saying that the government wanted to keep the total secret from China.
During last year's Taiwanese allies summit, Chen said that it was unlikely that the nation's Pacific allies would switch their diplomatic alliance to China in the foreseeable future, and that his administration would carefully manage relations with them and other diplomatic partners.
He also said that Taiwan was different from China in terms of offering aid packages, because "we don't write blank checks. Instead, we offer practical and useful programs designed to solve their problems."
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
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
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
RSS