President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday met with visiting former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, an economist-turned-politician who is well known for attaining high economic growth for Peru during his presidency from 2001 to 2006.
Toledo received wide-ranging support from the Peruvian people during his presidential term and continues to take part in many international activities since stepping down, which has won him high acclaim worldwide, Ma said.
Toledo’s acceptance of Taiwan’s invitation to visit the country to discuss democracy issues makes Taiwan feel Toledo is “a friend of Taiwan in Latin America,” Ma said.
At the invitation of the New Taiwanese Cultural Foundation that Ma founded in 1999, Toledo was scheduled to deliver a speech titled “The Political Economy of Democracy: Poverty, Growth and Economy” today in Taipei.
During the five years of Toledo’s presidency, the Peruvian economy grew by an average of 6 percent, one of the highest growth rates in Latin America, while inflation averaged only 1.5 percent.
Toledo is also well-known for his efforts to reduce poverty in Peru with the launch of the Juntos program aimed at helping poor families provide education and basic care for their children.
Ma said he hopes Toledo will share his country’s democratic experience with Taiwan during his visit, noting that Taiwan’s democratic development underwent great hardships to achieve the first popular presidential election in 1996, the first transition of power from one political party to another in 2000 and a second transition of power this year.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
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A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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