The Taipei City Government denied that it is giving privileged treatment to the chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), during his visit to Taipei by arranging for him to visit the International Flora Expo prior to opening hours.
Chen is scheduled to lead a team of Chinese negotiators to -Taiwan next week for the sixth round of cross-strait talks with Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation.
The meetings are likely to be held at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, and Chen is expected to visit the expo after the talks.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday confirmed the expo organizers’ plan to arrange for Chen to visit the expo about 30 minutes before it opens to the public at 9am.
“We have made similar -arrangements for all our guests at the expo, inviting them to visit the expo before opening hours. There is no privileges being given to Mr Chen,” he said.
He denied allegations that the expo would be entirely closed during Chen’s visit, promising that the expo would keep to its original schedule and protect visitors’ rights.
The flora expo, which opens daily from 9am to 10pm, attracts more than 40,000 visitors every day. Security agencies had suggested that the organizers close the expo and exhibition halls to the public during Chen’s visit because they were concerned about the safety of the guests.
Security concerns caused former US president Bill Clinton to cancel his visit to the expo at the last minute when he came to Taiwan last month.
Hau refused to reveal when Chen would visit to the expo.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS