Taipei and Houston, Texas, on Friday celebrated the 60th anniversary of their sister city relationship in an online ceremony, with the two cities pledging to reaffirm and bolster their partnership.
Taipei’s sister city agreement with Houston, signed on June 15, 1961, was the first such agreement for both cities.
On Friday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said that he is proud of all his city’s sister city relationships, adding that cities enter such ties to promote friendship, peace and citizen diplomacy through exchanges, and culture, education, business and community development.
“There has to be a first, and that first was Taipei in 1961. You are Houston’s first sister city, and we were likewise your first sister city,” Turner said. “In Taiwanese culture, the significance of the 60th anniversary marks five complete cycles of the Chinese zodiac.”
The 60th anniversary is proof of the long-lasting friendship between the two cities, Turner said, adding that he is confident that the ties set a positive example for sister city relationships worldwide.
There is an active Taiwanese community in Houston, with approximately 20,000 Taiwanese in the city and 80,000 in the greater Houston area, Turner said.
“We are truly grateful for the support and contributions received from the Taiwanese community in Houston during COVID-19, including generous donations of PPE [personal protective equipment] and masks for those in need. On behalf of all the people in Houston, we want to say thank you,” Turner said.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that the two cities can learn from each other’s achievements, such as Taipei’s COVID-19 response and Houston’s smart city initiatives.
Ko invited Turner to Taipei’s Smart City Summit and Expo next year.
The celebration was delayed by more than a month due to Taiwan’s nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert, which was in effect from May 19 to Monday and made larger indoor gatherings impossible.
Taipei has 48 sister cities, two partner cities and two friendship cities in 32 countries around the world, Taipei City Council data showed.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS