President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will go ahead with his plans to visit Nicaragua despite the death of Managua Mayor Alexis Arguello, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said in Panama on Wednesday.
Ma, who attended the inauguration of Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli on Wednesday, was scheduled to travel to Nicaragua today for a state visit.
Arguello, a boxing champion-turned-politician, was found dead at his home early on Wednesday. Local media reports said it appeared to be case of suicide.
PHOTO: REUTERS
His death, along with speculation that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega would accompanying deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on a bid to return home, had Taiwanese reporters accompanying Ma speculating on whether his trip to Managua would be affected.
Ou said Ma would continue to Nicaragua as scheduled. Ortega is scheduled to drive Ma to the hub of a bilateral technological cooperation project and Ma will also visit a trade fair where many Taiwanese companies are showcasing their latest products.
Touching on Arguello’s death, Ou said Ortega and Nicaragua’s foreign minister had not gone to Panama City for Martinelli’s inauguration.
Some of the local government officials in Ma’s delegation who had been scheduled to meet Arguello and Ou said their itinerary would now be adjusted. He said Ma and his delegation would extend their condolences on Arguello’s death when they arrive in Managua.
Ma and his entourage will make a stopover in Hawaii on their way back to Taiwan on Monday.
The presidential delegation was due to visit Honduras but that stop was canceled after Zelaya was forced into exile by military leaders on Sunday.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS