Most members of Taiwan's technical mission in Haiti have moved to the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, to avoid the increasingly violent opposition movement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Apart from the mission leader and several aides, the members and their families have left the mission compound for the Haitian capital, said ministry spokesman Richard Shih (
So far the 46 ROC citizens and staff at Taiwan's embassy in Port-au-Prince have been unharmed, he said.
Shih said the government believed the conflict in Haiti "would not hurt the relationship between Taiwan and Haiti," one of Taiwan's 14 allies in Latin America.
The US, Canada and the Organization of American States are concerned about the situation in Haiti, Shih added.
He said that the fighting has not had much of an impact on most people's lives.
Michel Lu (呂慶龍), former Taiwanese ambassador to Haiti, said widespread poverty has deepened grudges against the Haitian president, Jean Bertrand Aristide.
"It won't be an easy thing to get the opposition movement under control," he said.
But Lu added strife is unlikely to affect the Taiwan-Haiti relationship.
"The US attitude will be crucial to Aristide's survival. The president does not have troops -- that's a big problem for him," Lu said.
Early last month, Aristide told Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) special envoy for the celebration of Haiti's 200th anniversary of independence from France, that he would continue to support Taiwan's bids to join international organizations.
Aristide told Yao he hoped Chen succeeds in his re-election campaign and that he would like to invite Chen to visit Haiti after the March election.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)