DIPLOMACY
Tsai meets Haitian group
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) hopes to strengthen exchanges with Haiti through further cooperation, she told a delegation from the Caribbean nation on Wednesday. Apart from economic and trade exchanges, good results have been achieved through cooperation on infrastructure, agriculture, education and public health, Tsai told the delegation headed by Haitian Senate President Youri Latortue. The group’s visit will strengthen exchanges between the two nations, she said. Tsai mentioned Haiti’s backing of Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, including the UN and the International Civil Aviation Organization and Haitian President Jovenel Moise voicing support for Taiwan at the UN general assembly meeting in September. Tsai invited Moise to visit Taiwan.
EDUCATION
Indonesian school inks MOA
Taiwan will establish a research center in Indonesia under a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed on Wednesday in Jakarta with Bina Nusantara University to promote academic and cultural exchanges. Representative to Indonesia John Chen (陳忠), who signed the agreement on behalf of the Ministry of Education, said the center would provide courses for Indonesian academics to learn more about Taiwan’s culture, economy, societal development, politics and people. That knowledge would help deepen the friendship between the two nations, in keeping with the goals of the government’s New Southbound Policy, he said. Bernard Gunawan, chief executive of the Bina Nusantara Group that runs the school, said the agreement would allow for student exchanges between his university and those in Taiwan.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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