Ambassadors and representatives of six Central American countries to Taiwan paid a call on Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
They also urged the city to cease the practice of towing illegally parked cars bearing diplomatic plates.
Ma expressed regret for cases in which diplomats have had their cars towed and, unable to understand the chalk scrawls left by the tow truck companies advising owners as to where they can retrieve their vehicles, have had to suffer much inconvenience and spend time getting back their cars.
He said the city government will "try its best" to solve the problem by taking into consideration international custom, diplomatic reciprocity and the cordial relations between Taiwan and the countries in question.
The ambassadors who attended the meeting were Francisco Ricardo Santana Berrios from El Salvador, Oscar Alvarez from Costa Rica, Julio Roberto Palomo-Silva from Guatemala and Luis Wong from Nicaragua. Two representatives -- Lucia Mejia of Honduras and William Quinto of Belize -- also attended the meeting.
Ma said he is aware that the city suffers from a lack of parking spaces and disclosed that over the past two years and four months, even he has had to pay 11 fines for parking violations.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and