The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) declined to make any comment yesterday on a newspaper report that Taiwan had assisted in flying Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Japan for an international meeting early this year.
Speaking at a regular news conference, MOFA spokeswoman Katharine Chang (張小月) said the ministry was not aware of the reported event and thus didn't have any information to provide.
Instead, Chang reiterated the government's stance of supporting all anti-terrorism activities of the international community.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Chang said, the government has consistently maintained that all countries around the world should cooperate in fighting global terrorism.
Chang stressed that the Tai-wanese government and private sector's participation in the global anti-terrorism campaign mainly focuses on humanitarian aid and relief.
According to Chang, Taiwan has shipped food, blankets, tents and trucks to help Afghan refugees when the US attacked the now-defunct Taliban regime in Afghanistan in retaliation for its sheltering of Osama bin Laden -- the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, Chang said, Tai-wan has exchanged information with other countries regarding movements of suspected members of international terrorist groups.
A Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday that, at the request of the US, a passenger aircraft from Taiwanese air carrier China Airlines picked up Karzai and his aides Abu Dhabi during a regular commercial flight en route from Europe to Taipei in January.
"Requests to flyi Karzai had been rejected by the other air carriers for fear of becoming the target of reprisal by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group," the paper said.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS