President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will visit Central America twice between the end of next month and July to attend presidential inaugurations in two of Taiwan’s allies in the region, political sources said.
The president’s travel plans show that he will depart for a week-long Central America visit late next month that will take him to El Salvador to attend the inauguration of president-elect Mauricio Funes.
He will also travel to several of Taiwan’s other allies in the region. In July, the sources said, Ma is scheduled to visit Panama for three to four days, mainly to attend the inauguration of the country’s next president.
Ma made his first overseas tour as Taiwan’s head of state last August when he visited the Dominican Republic and Paraguay.
For that trip, Ma used a regular scheduled commercial flight to travel to the US, from where he flew to Central America on a chartered aircraft.
For the forthcoming visits Ma will only use chartered flights, with no decision yet made on which carrier will be used.
On customary transit stops in the US, the sources said, safety, convenience and comfort will remain the top guiding principles in all relevant arrangements.
Central and South America and the Caribbean are Taiwan’s diplomatic stronghold, with many of its 23 diplomatic allies located there.
Meanwhile, the sources said that Ma is also likely to attend a summit meeting between the leaders of Taiwan and its South Pacific allies to be held in August or September in the Solomon Islands.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
EVA Air is prohibiting the use of portable chargers on board all flights starting from Saturday, while China Airlines is advising passengers not to use them, following the lead of South Korean airlines. Current regulations prohibit portable chargers and lithium batteries from check-in luggage and require them to be properly packed in carry-on baggage, EVA Air said. To improve onboard safety, portable chargers and spare lithium batteries would be prohibited from use on all fights starting on Saturday, it said. Passengers are advised to fully charge electronic devices before boarding and use the AC and USB charging outlets at their seat, it said. South
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
WAR SIMULATION: The developers of the board game ‘2045’ consulted experts and analysts, and made maps based on real-life Chinese People’s Liberation Army exercises To stop invading Chinese forces seizing Taiwan, board gamer Ruth Zhong chooses the nuclear option: Dropping an atomic bomb on Taipei to secure the nation’s freedom and her victory. The Taiwanese board game 2045 is a zero-sum contest of military strategy and individual self-interest that puts players on the front lines of a simulated Chinese attack. Their battlefield game tactics would determine the theoretical future of Taiwan, which in the real world faces the constant threat of a Chinese invasion. “The most interesting part of this game is that you have to make continuous decisions based on the evolving situation,
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