■ DIPLOMACY
Ma to revisit allies
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is planning to visit Central America again next month, the Presidential Office said yesterday. A Presidential Office official, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Ma was scheduled to visit Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras with transit stops in San Francisco on his way there and in Hawaii on his return. The main purpose of the trip is to attend the inauguration of Panamanian president-elect Ricardo Martinelli. Ma recently returned from the inauguration of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes. The trip also took him to Belize and Guatemala. Ma canceled a meeting with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega after Ortega twice postponed the meeting, raising concerns over bilateral ties.
■ POLITICS
Yeh appointed vice minister
Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Deputy Minister Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) will succeed Oliver Yu (游芳來) as vice minister of transportation and communication, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The change will take effect in the middle of this month. Yu was transferred to replace Wu Min-yu (吳民佑) as chairman of Chunghwa Post on June 1 after Wu retired. The Executive Yuan said that Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) suggested the replacement and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) approved it yesterday. Temporarily transferred from the department of business administration at National Sun Yat-sen University, Yeh, a professor of business management, once served as a councilor at the Mainland Affairs Council and a consultant to the Straits Exchange Foundation.
■ DIPLOMACY
DPP protests office closures
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday criticized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) for scheduling the closing of five representative offices abroad. “Closing a representative office is a signal of protest against a host country, but MOFA’s closure of overseas representative offices is like a game to them,” DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) told a press conference yesterday, adding that “representative offices are not convenience stores, to open or close as one wishes.” Taiwan’s offices in countries without diplomatic ties with Taiwan indicated they acknowledged Taiwan’s sovereignty, Lee said. The legislator said that MOFA should review why the five offices were inefficient and make improvements rather than close them. Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) announced on Friday the government would close five of its 121 representative offices to better utilize resources.
■ SOCIETY
Cold medicine causes crash
A bus driver’s use of cold medicine that made him drowsy was the apparent cause of a bus accident on Sunday night that left two people dead, Taipei Deputy Mayor Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) said yesterday. A breathalyser test found that Chen Chin-fa (陳進發), the driver of Metro Transit Co’s bus No. 270, was not under the influence of alcohol, said Wu as he met the families of the victims. At about 7:45pm on Sunday, the bus, allegedly traveling at high speed and snaking its way down Yanjiuyuan Road Sec 2, hit a woman, Chi Chi-hui (紀季徽), on a bike before ramming into a motorcycle rider, Liu Yueh-e (劉月娥), on the opposite side of the road. Police said Chi died at the scene, while Liu died later in hospital. The bus stopped after crashing into the garage of a private house.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
China lacks the ability to “fully” invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing online advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. In an annual threat assessment of China sent to lawmakers, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the ministry said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations. “However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the natural geographical environment of the Taiwan Strait and insufficient landing equipment and logistic capabilities,”