President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to visit three of the nation’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific from Oct. 28 to Nov. 4, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
The president is to visit the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Chih-chung (吳志中) said at a Presidential Office news conference.
Tsai is to meet with senior officials of the three countries during her eight-day trip to promote bilateral ties, Wu said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Six of Taiwan’s 20 formal diplomatic allies are in the Pacific, the other three being Nauru, Kiribati and Palau.
In other news, Tsai yesterday said that the government would like the US and Japan to support its New Southbound Policy, which promotes cooperation in trade, infrastructure, investment and education between Taiwan and the policy’s target countries.
Tsai made the remark at the Presidential Office Building while receiving a group of foreign academics, who had attended the Yushan Forum on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The key for Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy to succeed is positive responses from our neighboring countries and the international community,” she said.
As the New Southbound Policy is aimed at “redefining Taiwan’s role in Southeast Asia and South Asia, our nation is committed to expanding opportunities with other like-minded nations in the New Southbound Policy target countries,” Tsai said.
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
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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