The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday pledged to have a new village to house Haitian earthquake victims completed within 14 months if transportation problems can be resolved by next month.
“We never failed to keep promises of bilateral cooperation programs with other countries,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Thomas Hou (侯平福) said.
Hou, along with representatives of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), held a press conference yesterday to respond to media reports questioning the village’s construction delays.
A few weeks after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in January last year that killed more than 300,000 people and left millions more homeless, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced several reconstruction projects for Haiti, a diplomatic ally.
Among them was “New Hope Village,” under which Taiwan would provide US$5.5 million from the Red Cross Society and the ministry for the construction of houses for 200 displaced families, two schools, a dormitory for teachers, a health center, at a 379 hectare site provided by the Haitian government.
Construction has yet to begin on New Hope Village, which also includes an agricultural program by the ICDF’s agricultural missions to help settled families develop skills.
Hou dismissed media allegations the government had broken its promise and that the Red Cross Society, the ICDF and the ministry had shirked their responsibilities for the delays.
“The project has been progressing according to our plan,” Hou said, adding that the ministry and the Red Cross had signed a letter of intent in April and that the Red Cross had signed construction contracts last month.
Hou said the project had been hampered by difficulties in transporting construction machinery and building materials to St Michel de l’Atalaye — the site of the project — about 200km away from Port-au-Prince.
A road-construction project was launched in March and is 30 percent complete. If the roads can be completed by next month, the New Hope Village could be completed in 14 months, Hou said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard