Lithuania will donate 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca Plc COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, its government said on Tuesday, after angering China in March by saying it would open a trade representative office on the island this year.
The vaccines were donated after a June 15 request for help from Taipei’s mission in neighbouring Latvia, the Lithuanian health ministry said in a submission to the government. They will be transferred by the end of September.
“We’d like to do more, but we do what we can,” Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said during a government meeting that was broadcast in Lithuania.
Photo: Reuters
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) office hailed the donation, adding: “This friendship from the Baltic Sea is precious.”
Taiwan had given Lithuania 100,000 medical-grade face masks last year when the coronavirus pandemic was spreading around the world, he said.
Taiwan is trying to speed up a vaccination programme that has been hobbled by supply delays.
It got a major boost this month when Japan donated 1.24 million AstraZeneca shots, followed on Sunday by 2.5 million Moderna Inc doses from the United States.
Infection numbers are now falling on the island after a rise since last month.
Lithuania’s government said last month it would also donate 100,000 vaccine doses to Ukraine, 15,000 to Georgia and 11,000 to Moldova.
FREEDOM SEEKER? While the intruder, identified as an ex-Chinese navy captain, looked different from previous ‘defectors,’ it could be China testing Taiwan’s limits, an official said Taiwan has stepped up national security measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, after a former Chinese navy captain was arrested for illegally entering the nation on a motorboat. “National security cannot be neglected for a minute,” he said, adding that security units had been instructed to “immediately strengthen protective measures.” Coast guard personnel arrested the man, surnamed Ruan (阮), on Sunday after his boat collided with other vessels at a ferry terminal on the Tamsui River (淡水河) in the north. Before that, he reportedly sailed the vessel into a harbor near the mouth of the river. Ruan is a retired member of
‘SAFER TAIWAN’: The president told ‘Time’ magazine that the new government under his administration ‘is willing to assist China and advance peace and prosperity’ A prosperous Taiwan can bring about progress in China, and Taipei seeks peace and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait, President William Lai (賴清德) told Time magazine in an exclusive interview published yesterday, his first since becoming president. Taiwan wishes for a stable and prosperous China, as it would help maintain peace and stability in the region, he said. “I have always believed that a stable China leads to a safer Taiwan. A prosperous Taiwan can also bring about progress in China,” he was quoted as saying, while asked if China’s problematic economy could be an opportunity for further engagement across strait.
RANDOM? Police believe the attack on four teachers from Cornell College in Iowa was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, a government spokesman said Chinese police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College who were teaching at a Chinese university in the northeast city of Jilin, officials said yesterday. A 55-year-old man surnamed Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner, Jilin police said. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him, as well as a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, they said. The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, the US school said. The injured were rushed to a hospital
FISHERIES ENFORCEMENT: While media have linked the vessel’s presence in a US harbor to RIMPAC, authorities said that it was engaged in a patrol in the Pacific Ocean The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) Chiayi-class CG 5002 Hsinchu (新竹) was anchoring in Honolulu in connection to an international fishery rules enforcement operation, CGA Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) told lawmakers yesterday. Hsieh made the remarks during a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee in Taipei after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Jen (黃仁) asked why the vessel was in Hawaiian waters. MarineTraffic, an online ship tracker, showed that the Hsinchu departed the Port of Taipei almost two weeks ago and entered Honolulu Harbor on Tuesday. The vessel’s presence in a US harbor ahead of the Rim