The US was expected to issue a statement yesterday congratulating incumbentPresident Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) after the Central Election Commissiondeclared him the winner of last Saturday's presidential election, a State
Department official told the "Taipei Times". No such statement had been received at the time of going to press.
It was not clear whether the message would come from the State Department or from the White House, but the White House is considered the most likely to issue the statement, as the Clinton White House did when Chen won the election in 2000.
Earlier in the week, the State Department indicated that it would wait until all the challenges launched by the pan-blue alliance were settled before Washington would congratulate the winner.
The decision to issue a statement yesterday is seen by some as reflecting the fact that the Bush administration now understands the election process much better than it did right after the election, since the challenges issued by the pan-blue camp took the legal and constitutional issues into new ground.
Over the weekend, in the wake of the final vote on Saturday night, the Bush administration issued a statement congratulating the “people of Taiwan”for the successful election, withholding its congratulations for Chen, even though the unofficial results showed him to be the winner.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, in his regular daily pressbriefing on Monday, noted that there were “a number of decisions pending”in Taiwan after the election that have to be settled through legal processes, and “we're just comfortable waiting for those processes to work
themselves out, and not for us to say who won, but for them to tell us who won.”
Since then, the administration has apparently decided it would issue its congratulatory statement as soon after the commission's certification of a winner as possible, even though the legal and constitutional challenges are
still unresolved.
SECRET OUT: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung yesterday accidentally revealed that the infections occurred at the ministry’s Taoyuan General Hospital The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the fifth COVID-19 case in a cluster infection at a Taoyuan hospital, where four other medical workers were confirmed to have been infected over the past week. The latest case is a nurse who had tested negative on Tuesday last week, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, told a news conference. However, on Thursday, she developed symptoms, such as nasal congestion and a cough, and a second test yesterday found that she was infected, Chen said. She is the head nurse of a ward where two
VIGILANCE: While two of the cases are family members of a nurse, there is no sign of community spread and the source of infection is identifiable, the CECC said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported four new domestic COVID-19 cases associated with a cluster infection at a Taoyuan hospital. Since the first case was identified on Tuesday last week, five healthcare workers — two doctors and three nurses — at the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Taoyuan General Hospital have tested positive for the virus. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that two of the four new cases are the husband and daughter of a nurse (case No. 863) who had earlier been confirmed to have COVID-19. The husband (case No. 864)
Don Quijote, the biggest discount store in Japan, is opening its first store in Taiwan today. The three-story Don Don Donki store in Taipei’s Ximending (西門町) area, which operates 24 hours a day, has already created 400 jobs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said in a press release. Many Taiwanese, including Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), consider a trip to Don Quijote an essential stop in Japan. “I have been to Don Quijote at least 10 times myself,” Huang said yesterday at a news conference announcing the store’s opening. “They are rendering an important service, because we cannot travel
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
RSS