A dozen foreign priests, nuns, missionaries and pastors were honored at the Presidential Office Building yesterday for their decades of dedicated service to Taiwan.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) conferred the Order of Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon to each of the 12 religious workers, saying that their work had brought serenity and peace to Taiwan.
On behalf of the public, Ma expressed his deepest gratitude to the honorees for their service in the areas of education, charity and social service.
According to the Presidential Office, the 12 religious workers have each served for at least 40 years in Taiwan, and one of them, 102-year-old Canadian priest Etienne Georges Beauregard, has been in Taiwan for 68 years.
At the ceremony, Ma highlighted their achievements, including the establishment of St Joseph’s Hospital in Yunlin County, which was cofounded by Dutch priest Antoine Pierrot 60 years ago.
Pierrot often drove the hospital’s ambulance and helped fix medical equipment in the facility, Ma said.
Responding on behalf of the honorees, Pierrot thanked the president for bestowing “such a great honor” on them.
The other honorees are nuns Theresa Kastner of the Netherlands and Miljenka Schnetzer of Sweden; US missionary Juanelva Rose; US pastors David Alexander and Daniel Freeman; and priests Brendan O’Connel of the US, Andres Diaz de Rabago of Spain, Yves Moal of France and Gian Carlo Michelini and Giovanni Rizz of Italy.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
RSS