The Costa Rican government announced on Friday last week the details of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) purchase of US$300 million in Costa Rican government bonds in the Constitutional Chamber of the country’s Supreme Court. The government has been unwilling to provide detailed information in the case.
Costa Rican media last Saturday reported on the testimony in the Constitutional Chamber by the country’s minister of finance, Guillermo Zuniga.
Zuniga said at a press conference on Friday last week that China had bought Costa Rican 20-year government bonds worth US$150 million on Jan. 23 at an interest rate of 2 percent. No broker was involved and the Costa Rican government had paid no commission.
Zuniga said China would pay the remaining US$150 million in January next year. He said his government had not made the deal public at the request of the Chinese government.
Costa Rican media reporting on the deal said that the money would be supervised by Banco BTC SA, which was founded by Costa Rican Ambassador to China Antonio Burgues, who remains a shareholder in the bank.
Costa Rica severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on June 7 last year after having established diplomatic relations with China on June 1.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said yesterday : “The truth of why Costa Rica broke up with us has finally been revealed.”
“It just goes to show that if we had continued to engage in a hostile diplomatic race with Beijing, Taiwan would unquestionably have been crushed,” he said.
Chen said for the year 2008 to 2009, MOFA’s budget has been roughly earmarked at US$1 billion (NT$30 billion).
“There is no way that we would be able to allocate one-third of our annual budget on cementing ties with just one country,” he said.
“This goes to show that a modus vivendi is necessary so we can avoid playing this money game [with Beijing],” he said.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man