The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) continued to be evasive on exactly when Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) would visit Taiwan, but confirmed the trip would take place before the end of the year in spite of recent protests over contaminated milk powder from China.
“We have not decided on an exact date but the general direction has been set,” council spokesman Liu Teh-hsun (劉德勳) said.
“We are aiming for the end of October or beginning of November,” Liu said.
Some pundits have speculated that Chen would visit next month because the many national flags decorating streets in Taipei for Double Ten national day celebrations would stay up until the end of the month.
Chen will visit Taipei for a second round of face-to-face talks with Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤). On the agenda will be direct cargo flights, direct sea links and food safety concerns.
The first talks between the SEF and ARATS were held in June in Beijing, when the two sides signed agreements to allow more Chinese tourists into Taiwan and begin weekend chartered flights.
Liu was also evasive about when the preparatory meeting for the second round of talks would occur, but hinted that the date and venue of the preparatory meeting should be nailed down sometime this week.
When asked if the foundation would demand Chen publicly apologize for Chinese melamine-tainted products, Liu said such a move would be superfluous because Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) has already made such a request.
In a question-and-answer session at the legislature last Tuesday, Liu demanded an apology from China for allowing products contaminated with melamine to be exported to Taiwan.
“It would be up to Chen’s conscience whether he apologizes or not,” Liu said.
Last week the government sent a group of health experts to Beijing to discuss the establishment of a platform to prevent the importation of substandard Chinese food.
Former council chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has strongly criticized the delegation’s trip as detrimental to Taiwan’s attempts to join the WHO.
“It sends a false message to the WHO and the rest of the international community that China is watching out for Taiwan’s public health and therefore Taiwan has no need to join the WHO,” Wu said.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS