Lithuania on Wednesday announced that it would donate a second batch of 235,900 doses of AstraZeneca PLC’s COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan in a gesture that reflects the warm ties between the two nations.
The shipment is scheduled to arrive in Taiwan next month. The eastern European country’s first donation of 20,000 AstraZeneca doses arrived in Taiwan on July 31.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in a statement that the latest donation was part of her country’s efforts to assist other countries in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Global vaccines equity and solidarity are crucial in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which, unfortunately, continues to disrupt the lives of people and countries around the world,” she said.
The Taipei Mission in the Republic of Latvia, which also promotes relations with Lithuania, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “Even though this donation seems to be another manifestation of virtuous circle, we are still most grateful for Lithuanian double generosity.”
In Taipei, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) on Wednesday night said that Taiwan appreciates Lithuania’s solid support, despite the distance between the two nations.
“The warm friendship between diplomatic partners knows no borders,” he said.
This second donation of COVID-19 vaccines again displays Lithuania’s love for democracy, and its strong and warm support for diplomatic partners, Chang said.
The “circle of good” between the two nations would definitely overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic, he added.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement late on Wednesday that a trade delegation being organized by the government plans to visit three eastern European countries next month, including Lithuania, to explore bilateral commerce and investment opportunities.
The two nations are set to reciprocate representative offices by the end of this year in a show of solidarity between democracies, it said.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
RSS