US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Beijing yesterday for talks expected to focus on pushing forward six party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.
Rice arrived in Beijing after touring China’s earthquake shattered Sichuan Province.
Her visit comes after North Korea handed in a key declaration last week outlining its nuclear activities and destroyed the cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear power plant.
PHOTO: AP
In Sichuan, Rice met children who were made homeless by last month’s devastating earthquake and praised the country’s response to the disaster.
Rice offered her support to those who survived the quake, which left 88,000 people dead or missing and up to 5 million displaced.
“I’ve been tremendously impressed with the recovery, with the resilience of the people,” Rice told journalists after touring the wrecked city of Dujiangyan, near the epicenter.
Besides touring the city that has suffered up to US$7.1 billion in economic damage, Rice visited victims in a make-shift refugee camp.
When Rice dropped into a classroom, Zhou Yifan, a student living at the camp spoke to her in English, saying: “My pleasure to take a photo with you. I often see you on TV, you are a superstar.”
Rice was expected to hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) today.
During her talks with China’s leaders, Rice said she would discuss ways to get China’s close ally Myanmar to accept international aid following a typhoon that slammed the country last month.
“It has been sad that the Burmese authorities, instead of making possible the international community’s response to their people, that they have put up barriers to that response,” Rice said. “Many lives could have been saved, perhaps many more can still be saved if we can get that response.”
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS