DIPLOMACY
Sister city ties eyed
Washington has offered to forge sister city ties with Taipei, the Taipei City Government said in a statement yesterday. The proposal was raised the previous day by Washington Mayor Vincent Gray during a visit to the US capital by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌). Hau readily accepted the offer and said the two sides would realize the arrangement very soon, the statement said. Hau also invited Gray to visit Taipei in the hope that relations between the cities would be deepened through such exchanges. Hau arrived in the US capital on Wednesday on a four-day visit, part of a three-nation tour that will also take him to Nicaragua and Panama. The main purpose of the trip is to attend the 55th Sister Cities International Annual Conference being held March 3 to March 5 in Arlington, Virginia and to strengthen Taipei’s friendship with its sister cities in the US and Central America, the statement said.
SOCIETY
People receiving aid up 17%
The number of people in the country who received government aid last year stood at 188,433, representing 17 percent growth compared with the previous year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The ministry attributed the growth to a 2009 amendment to the act that governs the government’s relief for women in special circumstances, including domestic violence victims and single mothers who lost their jobs or were too sick to raise their children. Under the amendment, the act was expanded to cover “families in special circumstances,” so that men in similar circumstances were included. According to ministry data, the ministry released NT$478.6 million (US$16.3 million) of relief subsidies last year.
TOURISM
Japan-Taiwan ties upgraded
In a gesture of upgrading the importance of Japan-Taiwan tourism exchanges, the Interchange Association, Japan (IAJ) will take over the assignment from a private entity starting on April 1. The private Japan Tourist Association’s Taiwan Office will come to an end on March 31 and the IAJ, Japan’s representative office in Taipei, will be in charge of all related activities the next day, said Toshinobu Ikubo, head of the association’s Taiwan office. According to Ikubo, the change is part of Tokyo’s policy of giving tourists a one-stop service location for planning their vacations to Japan. This change can be viewed as an upgrade in bilateral tourism activities between the two countries, as well as the Japanese government’s renewed priority toward attracting tourists from Taiwan. The private office had set a goal of attracting 1.5 million Taiwanese visitors to Japan this year, a goal that will be adopted by the IAJ.
CULTURE
NPM construction date set
Construction of the southern branch of the National Palace Museum (NPM) will start in January 2013 and the branch will open on a trial basis upon completion, which is scheduled for 2015, the museum said. The first stage of the project will involve construction of the main buildings and general landscaping, the museum said. It was decided in 2004 that a branch would be established in Chiayi County, with the aim of showcasing Asian arts and cultures. However, major revisions were subsequently made to the details of the project and they were not finalized until last October when the Cabinet approved the changes, according to a statement issued by the museum.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by