The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been communicating with Canberra about Australia’s needs for relief aid amid massive bushfires, and its preliminary plan is to donate about 100,000 surgical masks, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said yesterday.
The bushfires continue to rage across southeast Australia, killing scores of animals and causing serious damage to property, Ou told a news briefing in Taipei, adding that people traveling to the country should beware of air pollution.
Asked what aid Taiwan would provide to Australia, she said that the government plans to donate 100,000 masks, but added that the exact number and type have not been confirmed, as it is still gathering information about the country’s needs.
Photo: CNA
As masks are considered medical products in Australia, the ministry would need to follow local regulations when making the donation, she said.
The Australian Office in Taipei has also provided a list of several organizations that could receive donations for the bushfires, she added.
In related news, the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs said that the ministry would donate 20,200 tonnes of rice to Haiti, up from 8,600 tonnes donated last year, as the Caribbean ally faces a food crisis amid social unrest.
After filing an application with the Council of Agriculture, the ministry would next month arrange the shipment of rice to the island country, department Deputy Director-General Silvia Liu (劉聿綺) said.
Due to an ongoing conflict between its ruling and opposition parties, the Haitian parliament on Monday stopped operations and the country’s affairs are being temporarily run by administrative orders, she said.
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
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
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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
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