Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) will be one of five representatives to attend the US' annual National Prayer Breakfast to be held in Washington next Febru-ary on behalf of President Chen Shui-bian (
The US government is sched-uled to hold the 55th National Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton Hotel on Feb. 1.
US President George W. Bush will give the keynote speech at the breakfast of nearly 5,000,which will include members of Congress and guests from around the world.
Over the past five years, former senior advisers to the president Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) and Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), and former Democratic Progressive Party secretary-general Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) led delegations on behalf of Chen to attend the annual event.
This year, Taiwan will have five representatives in its delegation and Hsieh will be included in the group.
Although Hsieh's special assistant Albert Lin (林耀文) yesterday declined to confirm the matter, MOFA spokesman David Wang (王建業) verified it yesterday.
The format of next year's National Prayer Breakfast is slightly different to past years, Wang added, saying that the US has sent individual invitations to the invited guests.
Hsieh will not be the leader of the delegation, Wang said.
Wu and Taiwan's Representative to Washington David Lee (
Hsieh, who lost in his bid for Taipei mayor earlier this month, is now appearing in a series of political engagements which many perceive to be a warm-up lap for the 2008 presidential election.
According to one of Hsieh's close aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Hsieh will also visit Singapore in the near future to meet with former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS