The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that it is planning a "Europe Week" program in May in connection with the opening of a EU representative office in Taipei.
"A flurry of festivities and eye-catching exhibitions will be held from May 5 to May 9 in celebration of the opening of the EU office in Taipei," said Lin Yung-lo (
The activities will include a European film festival, a European postage-stamp exhibit, a European poster show and a European cultural heritage and artifacts exhibit, as well as a "Europe Day" dinner party, Lin said.
"The program is part of our efforts to boost friendship and cooperation with European countries, including the 15 EU member states," Lin said.
Lin added that the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- has not included Taiwan on a list of "off-limits" areas to which its staff members should avoid traveling amid the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The commission has advised its staff members to avoid visiting Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Guangdong because of the risk of contracting the disease.
Judging from the commission's travel advisory, Lin said, Taiwan is not facing substantial difficulties in communicating and engaging with EU countries.
Nevertheless, he said, several EU countries, such as Spain and Austria, have included Taiwan on their own lists of areas their citizens should avoid amid the SARS scare.
Lin said the foreign ministry has directed the nation's representative offices to brief their host countries on Taiwan's efforts and achievements in controlling the flu-like infectious disease.
"The governments and health authorities of those countries now understand that the SARS outbreak has been kept at bay in Taiwan," Lin said.
Taiwan has 20 probable SARS cases and no SARS fatalities. Moreover, there has been no "mass transmission" in Taiwan.
According to ministry tallies, 16 countries have included Taiwan on their travel-advisory lists over the SARS scare. They are: Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, South Korea, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Spain, the UK and Israel.
No country in the EU has official ties with Taiwan.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift