The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has planned a series of seminars for next month in four special municipalities on bolstering Taiwan’s national security, a party official said yesterday.
The first would be held on Thursday in Taipei, said Wu Jun-zhi (吳峻鋕), head of the DPP’s China affairs department.
With Beijing’s increasing influence worldwide, the competition between the US and China, and Taiwan’s geostrategic importance to the top two powers in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan’s national security can be guaranteed only by improving its national strength, Wu said.
The department has organized the seminars under the theme of “Strengthen Taiwan, the country will be safe,” to convey the party’s ideas and views on the nation’s national security and to gather public opinion on the topic, Wu said.
The Taipei forum would focus on US-China-Taiwan relations, while the forum in Taichung on Dec. 18 would focus on national defense and security, the one in Tainan on Dec. 20 would focus on the situation in Hong Kong, and the one in Kaohsiung on Dec. 26 would focus on Taiwan’s economy, he said.
In other developments, sources yesterday said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to take part virtually in three events hosted by three Washington-based think tanks.
Tsai is scheduled to participate in an event on Thursday hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, and to deliver speeches at the National Democratic Institute’s annual meeting on Tuesday next week, and at the Hudson Institute’s year-end celebration the following day, they said.
In her speeches, Tsai is to focus on three points, the sources said.
The first point is that Taiwan upholds freedom and democracy in the face of any challenge, a value it shares with the US, they said.
The second point is the challenges the international community faces, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic and supply chain restructuring, the sources said.
The third point is that international cooperation is even more important with regard to those challenges, they said.
Additional reporting by Yang Chun-hui
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai