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.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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