Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), the nation's representative to the US, visited the construction site of the Pentagon Memorial in Washing-ton at the invitation of the US Department of Defense on Friday, an official from Taiwan's representative office said.
The memorial is designed to commemorate those who died in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, said Tsai Chung-li (蔡仲禮), director-general of the Information Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US.
Tsai said that the Pentagon Memorial Fund had raised money for the construction of a memorial park dedicated to the victims. Construction on the outdoor memorial, which began in June last year, is scheduled to be completed next year. The park will include 184 benches, each engraved with one of the victims' names.
The defense department invited 50 guests, including mem-bers of the victims' families and sponsors of the construction project, to attend the memorial activity and to learn more about the construction's progress. Also invited were Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers.
Tsai said Taiwan donated US$1 million to the construction project to express the condolences of the government and people to the families of the victims and to show support for the US fight against terrorism.
Taiwan's donation is listed along with the country's flag and official name, the Republic of China, on the memorial project's official Web site, Tsai said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
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The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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