Panamanian Ambassador Jose Antonio Dominguez yesterday dismissed rumors that diplomatic ties might be cut in November. He also said a new ambassador will soon arrive to replace him.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Sun Ta-chien (
Kau said the ministry "has no information" about Panama's possible change of allegiance.
Sun also questioned whether Panama had rejected a US$10 billion aid package Taiwan offered to help repair the Panama Canal. The package, Sun claimed, was said to be part of Taiwan's efforts to salvage relations with Panama.
Rumors about the package "were not facts," Kau said.
Dominguez said in a phone interview that although President Chen Shui-bian (
He stressed Taiwan will help the canal expansion project in form of "cooperation" or "investment" rather than paying Panama up to US$10 billion for the work.
The ambassador also denied speculation that Taiwan and Pana-ma may cut ties two months from now. Dominguez, who is scheduled to leave Taipei next Thursday, said his successor will be arriving early next month.
"I can even tell you his name. He is Julio Mock," Dominguez said, noting that if Panama had any intention to switch recognition to Beijing, it would not have been in a hurry to send a new ambassador to Taipei.
Taiwan's 12th bid to enter the UN was rejected last Wednesday. All but five of Taiwan's diplomatic allies spoke in favor of the country's bid to join the UN. Panama was among those which failed to speak for Taiwan.
Dominguez told reporters last Thursday that his country did not speak because its new UN ambassador is still building contacts.
Meanwhile, during a meeting with foreign correspondents in Panama last Thursday, First Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Relations Samuel Lewis Navarro said his government had been considering whether to speak in favor of Taiwan. He said Panama had been assessing the advantages and disadvantages of speaking in favor of Taiwan.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching