Taiwan expects a Czech delegation to arrive on Aug. 30 and depart on Sept. 4, with visitors including Vera Kuberova, the widow of former Czech Senate president Jaroslav Kubera, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The 90-member delegation, to be led by Senate President Milos Vystrcil, is expected to include business, political and academic representatives, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, who in January signed a sister-city deal with the Taipei City Government.
Asked about the schedule at a news briefing in Taipei, Department of European Affairs Director-General Johnson Chiang (姜森) said that the delegation members must test negative for COVID-19 twice — the first test conducted two days before they depart and the second upon arrival in Taiwan.
Photo: Peng Wan-hsin, Taipei Times
The ministry is to work with the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) and receive pandemic prevention training, Chiang said, adding that the measures adopted for the visits of former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar would be implemented.
Business representatives are to attend an economic forum that would bolster Taiwan-Czech free trade cooperation, he said.
Many in the delegation have experienced Chinese oppression and they hope to establish a cooperation network with groups in Taiwan, he said.
Kubera, who passed away on Jan. 20 after a heart attack, was scheduled to visit Taiwan in February.
Kuberova and their daughter, Vendula Vinsova, accused Beijing of sending threatening letters and placing undue stress on Kubera, leading to his death.
Vystrcil’s visit has received support from the Czech Senate and is intended to show the nation’s resolve to uphold democratic values and not bow to oppression from China, Chiang said.
Vystrcil, whose position is second only to Czech President Milos Zeman, would give a speech on democratic values, Chiang said.
In addition to political and business dignitaries, representatives of major Czech universities and research institutions, as well as the Czech Philharmonic, would be part of the delegation, he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas