A political cartoon featuring APEC leaders at the upcoming informal leadership summit in Busan, South Korea, has triggered speculation that Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (
However, an official from Lee's office at the Academia Sinica yesterday denied that Lee would attend the APEC summit this year. The official said the Nobel laureate will participate in an overseas academic conference starting tomorrow and lasting until Nov. 15, which would not give him enough time to prepare for the APEC meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 18 and Nov. 19.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Michel Lu (
Lu said the ministry was still waiting for news from the Presidential Office on who the representative will be.
The cartoon was published yesterday by the Yonhap News Agency, which has been selected by the South Korean government to report on the APEC meeting.
In the cartoon, the head of Taiwan's top research institute and the Nobel laureate are among the heads of state of the APEC member nations in attendance.
Lee, who attended the last three informal APEC leadership summits on behalf of Chen, said earlier that he had no intention of attending this year's meeting.
Chen this year named Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to go to Busan on his behalf. However, China has voiced vehement opposition, citing a memorandum of understanding signed before Taiwan joined the organization which states that Taiwan can only send a "minister in charge of APEC-related economic affairs" to attend APEC meetings.
Beijing has also said that since then, APEC "has operated on this basis."
Chen voiced regret on Tuesday over Beijing's rejection of Wang, but stressed that Taiwan would not be absent from the meeting.
Wang yesterday told reporters that he still hopes to attend the APEC meetings on behalf of Chen and is still working through various channels to secure his representation in South Korea.
Wang said he had met former South Korean president Kim Young-sam in the legislature yesterday. Wang said that Kim promised to lobby Seoul on the matter.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS