Ahead of his return to Taipei tonight from his five-day overseas visit to the South Pacific, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday talked with the press about his thoughts on his trip.
During a two-hour gathering with the Taiwanese press in the Solomon Islands yesterday afternoon, the president said the journey to the two scenic nations of Palau and the Solomon Islands has strengthened his determination to promote balanced and sustainable development in Taiwan.
PHOTO: CNA
Prior to the gathering with the Taiwanese press yesterday afternoon, the president made a visit to Taiwan's agricultural technical mission in King George during his second day in the Solomon Islands.
Referring to bending down when tending to the rice crops as well as snorkeling -- something he did for the first time in Palau on Saturday -- the president said the two activities would encourage his government to remain humble.
"The head-down position is needed when one goes snorkeling, and the bending down position is needed when toiling in the fields. A lowered head allows us to see the beautiful underwater scenery, while bending down allows us to harvest," Chen said.
"This is the philosophy I'd like my government to follow -- rule through modesty and humbleness," he added.
During a visit to Palau before coming to the Solomon Islands, Chen said he gained inspiration from seeing trees growing on barren rocks on a small islet of the Palau archipelago.
"Since trees can sprout out of hard and rugged rocks, I believe that with goodwill, sincerity, patience and wise new thinking, we will be able to open Beijing's doors no matter how recalcitrant the Chinese leaders are," Chen said.
Although both Palau and the Solomon Islands are small nations, they nonetheless have attached great importance in protecting their natural environment and marine resources. Chen took this point to stress the importance of substantial development.
"What the 23 million people in Taiwan care about is not which political party governs, but how sustainable our development is," Chen said.
The Solomon Islands is the final leg of Chen's official visit to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the South Pacific region.
Chen will address the country's parliament today before returning to Taipei tonight after a five-hour stopover in the US territory of Guam.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
RSS