President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met with Panamanian Vice President and president-elect Juan Carlos Varela shortly after he arrived in Panama City on Monday.
Ma recounted how he met Varela five years ago, saying he was glad to see such an “exceptional” politician become president.
He said he hoped that bilateral cooperation and exchanges can be expanded based on the nations’ long-term rapport, adding that Panama has made great progress over the past five years, including achieving an annual average economic growth of 8 percent.
Photo: CNA
Ma also encouraged Varela to visit Taiwan to learn more about the country.
Varela praised the Ma administration’s achievements in relations with China, saying that reciprocal visits of the top officials in charge of cross-strait affairs will benefit the people of both sides.
He reaffirmed that exchanges between the Republic of China (ROC) and Panama will continue to be smooth and friendly.
Earlier in the day, Ma met Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli to discuss a wide range of topics, including the FIFA World Cup, weight loss and energy issues.
This is Ma’s fourth trip to Panama — his second as president — and he said he felt a sense of familiarity stepping on Panamanian soil again.
He hosted a luncheon for Taiwanese expatriates in the country shortly after he arrived at his hotel on Monday.
Ma told the gathering that Taiwan has become increasingly open to the world due to improvement in cross-strait relations and the two sides of the Strait have signed 21 agreements since 2008.
He also mentioned the landmark visits to China by Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) in February and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) to Taiwan last week.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese media raised questions about the lack of a military honor guard welcoming ceremony for Ma in Panama City.
Ambassador to Panama Diego Chou (周麟) said Ma has received a high level of courtesy on this visit.
Ma was given a red-carpet welcome and was greeted on arrival by Panamanian Foreign Minister Francisco Alvarez De Soto, treatment not accorded to most other foreign heads of state now visiting the country, Chou said.
Because Taiwan’s delegation was the largest — and the only one to arrive in Panama by chartered flight — the Panamanian government made special arrangements for Ma’s plane to land at Howard/Panama Pacifico International Airport, which is more spacious than Tocumen International Airport, Chou said.
This allowed for a special stand to be built at the former US air base for the media, he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching