President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday pledged to strengthen ties with Russia, saying he expected Moscow to grant Taiwanese visa-free travel and start direct flight services among economic and cultural exchanges.
The improvement in cross-strait relations and Taiwan’s signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China last month prompted great opportunities for more exchanges between Taiwan and other Asian countries as cross-strait relations were no longer an issue, Ma said.
OPPORTUNITY
“Many Asian countries are excited about the ECFA as they see the opportunity to strengthen economic ties with Taiwan as well,” Ma said when meeting with Vasily Do Brovolskiy, Russia’s top representative to Taiwan, at the Presidential Office.
“We expect to push for more development in economic and cultural exchanges with Russia at this historic point, starting with reciprocal visa waivers and direct air links,” he said.
The president lauded Russia’s rich natural resources and its achievements with its economy. He said the nation’s trade with Russia decreased to US$2.7 billion from US$3.6 billion in 2008 because of global financial crisis and that there were only 20 Taiwanese businessmen in Russia.
AMPLE ROOM
“There is ample room for Taiwan and Russia to increase trade and investment,” Ma said.
On educational exchanges, there are about 120 Taiwanese students studying in Russia, while 250 Russian students are pursuing their education in Taiwan, Ma said.
The president said first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) visited Russia last month as honorary director of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and he expected more performing arts groups from the two sides to visit each other and increase cultural exchanges.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
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
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. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS