Taiwan would provide financing for Paraguay, its South American ally, to purchase COVID-19 vaccines from India, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Saturday.
Taipei has agreed to revise a 2018 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Paraguay, one of Taiwan’s 15 diplomatic allies and its only one in South America, to help it fight the pandemic, the ministry said.
The MOU change would provide Asuncion with US$16.50 million to purchase 2 million doses of the Covaxin vaccine from India-based Bharat Biotech.
Photo: AFP
Covaxin was the first COVID-19 vaccine developed in India.
On Thursday last week, Ambassador to Paraguay Jose Han (韓志正) signed a document with Paraguayan Deputy Minister of Public Health and Social Welfare Hernan Martinez to adjust the 2018 MOU to prioritize fighting the disease.
Paraguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs Euclides Acevedo witnessed the signing.
The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its gratitude to Taiwan for helping the South American ally fight the pandemic, adding that the two nations’ cooperation would strengthen democracy, MOFA said.
Taiwan and Paraguay have long had a strong friendship and worked closely in numerous areas, it said, adding that the government would continue to help Paraguay in this time of need, just as Taiwan would continue to team up with like-minded countries to safeguard democracy.
Last month, Acevedo said that China planned to provide Paraguay with COVID-19 vaccines if it would switch its recognition from Taipei to Beijing, but Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez wrote on Twitter on Tuesday last week that his country rejected China’s “blackmail tactics.”
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS