President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has designated Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) his special envoy to the official inaugurations of the heads of states of three of the nation’s diplomatic allies next month.
Yang is scheduled to visit Nicaragua and Guatemala in Central America and Gambia in Africa during a 19-day tour that starts on Tuesday, during which he will make several transit stops in the US and Europe.
He will attend the swearing-in ceremony for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on Jan. 10, that of Guatemalan president-elect Otto Perez Molina on Jan. 14 and the inauguration ceremony for Gambian President -Yahya -Jammeh on Jan. 19.
“These are our country’s important allies and we would like to express our congratulations to them in person,” Yang said, adding that his stopovers in the US and EU would be purely for transit purposes.
Separately, Yang said he decided on Thursday to overrule a policy that would have required nationals from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines who have married a Taiwanese and are seeking residential visas to stay in Taiwan for more than six months to have their fingerprints taken.
Bureau of Consular Affairs Director--General Thomas Chen (陳經銓) announced the policy at a press briefing on Thursday morning.
Chen said the policy was aimed at preventing fake marriages and targeted at countries where the -processing of identity cards is not rigorous, citing figures indicating that between 15 percent and 30 percent of spouses from these countries were suspected of fake marriages and are denied visas.
However, Yang said the issue was “not urgent” and the situation “had improved in recent years.”
“Considering the limited manpower and equipment [at the ministry’s overseas missions] to process fingerprinting, we will focus on more pressing problems,” Yang said, referring to identity fraud involving migrant workers.
Yang brushed off a media inquiry as to whether the U-turn was made to avoid upsetting foreign spouses in the run up to the Jan. 14 election. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 90,000 people from that group are eligible to vote next month.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back