Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa on Saturday named a new economic policy minister and called for the nullification of a recent arbitration ruling against his government in its feud with oil giant Chevron.
Katiuska King, currently a vice secretary in the country’s Senplades planning and development department, will be sworn in today to replace outgoing Economic Policy Minister Diego Borja. A total of eight or nine new ministers are to be named, Correa said in a televised address.
“Katiuska King will be the new economic policy minister,” Correa said.
It was unclear whether Borja would continue to head the central bank, which has not managed monetary policy since the country adopted the US dollar in 2000.
Correa has a troubled relationship with private investors.
He is forcing foreign oil companies to renegotiate their contracts in a bid to increase state control over the sector.
The fiery leftist leader shocked the markets in 2008 by defaulting on US$3.2 billion (NT$101 billion) in bonds and has sided with plaintiffs in the Amazon region of the country who are suing US oil company Chevron Corp for US$27 billion in environmental damages.
An arbitration panel ruled on Tuesday that Ecuador’s courts violated international law by delaying rulings on commercial disputes between Chevron and Ecuador’s government, and awarded Chevron US$700 million.
“We are going to look to nullify this monstrosity,” Correa said on Saturday.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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