The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced the latest wave of a personnel reshuffle yesterday, including the appointments of new representatives to Poland, Germany and New Zealand.
Ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said at a news conference that Wei Wu-lien (魏武煉), head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, has been appointed representative to Germany; Tsai Erh-huang (蔡爾晃), a former ambassador to Belize, has been appointed representative to New Zealand; and Kelly Hsieh (謝武樵), head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto, has been appointed head of the Geneva bureau under the Taipei Economic and Cultural Delegation in Switzerland.
Wei will replace You Ching (尤清), a technocrat of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who resigned recently as the representative to Germany.
Other possible changes overseas include the head of Taipei representative offices in Belgium, Italy and Brazil, Chen said.
“All these new arrangements are still in the pipeline,” he said.
Meanwhile, representative to Switzerland George Liu (劉寬平) said yesterday he had tendered his resignation a day earlier in light of his dual citizenship.
Liu’s resignation came amid reports that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration was planning to replace a number of non-career diplomats appointed by the former DPP administration.
Liu, who is currently in Taipei, told the Central News Agency’s correspondent in Geneva by telephone that he had personally handed in his letter of resignation to Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) at a meeting with the minister on Tuesday morning.
The letter was written late last month as the discussion over the appropriateness of officials holding foreign citizenship or permanent residency resurfaced, Liu said.
Although Liu filed a form to renounce his US citizenship late last year before he assumed the post of representative to Switzerland in February, he is still a US citizen because US authorities have not asked him to appear at a US embassy or consulate to complete the procedure.
Liu, previously a Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator, had been named in media reports speculating which diplomatic officials were likely to be replaced in the personnel reshuffle.
Liu also expressed displeasure yesterday at the way the ministry had handled personnel issues.
Instead of directly informing those concerned of its decisions, the ministry has allowed the media to break the news, which has also sown rumors, Liu said.
“This has damaged the reputation of diplomatic officials,” he said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
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