Taiwan will not send a representative to Venezuela until the country demonstrates more goodwill, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
Diego Chou (周麟), the deputy head of the ministry’s Department of Central and South American Affairs, made the remarks at a press conference when asked when the ministry would name a new representative to head its economic and cultural office in Venezuela.
Since March, Caracas has refused to issue long-term visas to Taiwanese diplomatic personnel, he said. In August last year, it also denied visas to a group of Taiwanese baseball players seeking to participate in the 13th World Youth Championships.
Chou said the ministry was considering shutting down some underperforming representative offices in Latin America.
“MOFA is considering the possibility of shutting down some of its nine representative offices in Central and South America that have failed to fulfill their mandate,” he said.
“The planned move is aimed at cutting needless government spending, particularly for trade and economic offices in countries that are unfriendly to Taiwan,” he added, without mentioning any names.
The ministry maintains nine representative offices in Latin America, focusing on bilateral trade and economic co-operation between Taiwan and the host countries in the absence of formal diplomatic links, Chou said.
For instance, he said, the MOFA’s economic and cultural office in Mexico has been instrumental in establishing two-way trade and investment ties between Taiwan and Mexico, although there are few Taiwanese expatriates in that country.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its