The reopening of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Guam, which had been set for this month, would be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero on Monday last week said that she tested positive for the virus, but added that she only exhibited moderate symptoms and would continue to lead the fiscal and COVID-19 response teams from home.
As of yesterday afternoon, the US territory of nearly 168,000 people had reported 577 confirmed cases, with five deaths.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The Guam office is expected to reopen at the end of next month, but there is still uncertainty amid the pandemic, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The office was closed in 2017 due to budget and personnel allocation issues, while its re-establishment reflects closer Taiwan-US ties and the growing strategic importance of the Pacific region, the ministry said previously.
The ministry’s work with the US focuses on boosting bilateral cooperation — including in defense or trade — working to lift restrictions on bilateral exchanges and continuing to invite US Cabinet officials to Taiwan, Department of North American Affairs Director-General Douglas Hsu (徐佑典) told the news conference.
Hsu made the remarks when asked to comment on a New York Times report that said the US was seeking to bolster Taiwan’s status, but without recognizing its sovereignty.
In other news, Somaliland’s representative office in Taiwan is expected to open early next month, Somaliland Representative to Taiwan Mohamed Omar Hagi Mohamoud told the Taipei Times in a message, but added that he could not at the time reveal the office’s location.
Mohamoud arrived in Taiwan on Friday last week and is in isolation until Friday.
Taiwan’s representative office in Somaliland was opened on Monday.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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