President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday received Taiwan’s CPBL pro league champions the CTBC Brothers at a reception where she endorsed a new plan for the national team.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and other officials were at the Presidential Office Building to welcome the CTBC Brothers, who were led by club owner Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) and team manager Lin Wei-chu (林威助). They were joined by the team’s six cheerleaders.
CTBC’s star catcher, Francisco Pena, a former Major League player from the Dominican Republic, told reporters that he was very honored to be received by Taiwan’s president.
Photo: CNA
“It is very special that Taiwan has a woman president,” he said. “It means that girls growing up in this country can aspire to become the president... I also have a daughter, maybe she can be encouraged, and also aspire to be a future president.”
“My family back home will be very proud of me,” he added.
It was the second time the team had visited the office, as they have won the CPBL champsionship two years in a row, Tsai said in a speech.
She also congratulated six of the team’s players for their stellar performance during the World Baseball Classic (WBC) Pool A games in Taichung.
Tsai thanked CPBL commissioner Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), who is deputy speaker of the Legislative Yuan, for providing support during the WBC, and praised him for initiating a plan to upgrade the national team’s resources and improve their training regime.
Lai said that Koo, who is also the president of the Baseball Federation of Asia, did well to win the bid for Taiwan to host the Pool A games in Taichung, which were mainly sponsored by his family’s conglomerate CTBC Financial.
“During games, we are all brothers who rally for our players. When facing other countries ... we all support Taiwan,” Lai said.
Koo and team officials gifted Tsai and Lai with No. 100 CTBC Brothers jerseys to denote a full score of 100.
Lai said jokingly that it was somewhat awkward, because he is a well-known supporter of the Tainan-based Uni-President Lions, as he represented the city as a legislator and served two terms as the city’s mayor.
REPORT: Taipei has expressed an interest in obtaining loitering munitions matching the AeroVironment Switchblade 300 or the Anduril Altius-600, ‘Foreign Policy’ said Taiwan is seeking US-made kamikaze drones in an apparent concession to pressure from Washington to focus on asymmetric capabilities to defeat or deter a Chinese attack, Foreign Policy said in a report on Wednesday. Taipei has expressed an interest in obtaining AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions or other devices with similar capabilities, it said, citing four sources familiar with the matter commenting on condition of anonymity. The Switchblade 300 is a tube-launched drone designed for attacking ground troops, while its larger sibling, the Switchblade 600, could be used to destroy tanks and entrenched troops. Ukraine has utilized both systems extensively in its fight against
Police officers yesterday morning apprehended the prime suspect of a triple homicide case, after raiding the suspect’s hideout in Taichung. They transported the suspect to New Taipei City for questioning and recorded his statement last night. The suspect, identified as a 24-year-old man surnamed Chang (張), is believed to have used his hands to strangle his wife, surnamed Chen (陳), 29, along with his three-year-old son from a previous marriage and his wife’s mother, 69. The three dead bodies were wrapped in blankets when they were discovered inside their apartment in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) on Saturday. Chang was holding a
Hungarian Member of Parliament Tompos Marton said he considers Taiwan to be a better alternative to China as a strategic partner. Marton, who is the vice president of the opposition Momentum Party, made the remarks in an interview with the Central News Agency on Sunday. He draped a Republic of China flag across his shoulders to protest Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to the capital city, Budapest, on Thursday last week, and openly voiced support for Taiwan on social media. He said in the interview that he wanted to remind the world that there were alternatives to China, and that “Taiwan has
A female physician at New Taipei City’s Shuang Ho Hospital was bullied and made to work for 32 consecutive hours by a senior colleague while pregnant before later having a miscarriage, an internal investigation found, the hospital said on Monday. The perpetrator has been removed from his post, the hospital said. The attending physician in the hospital’s Medical Imaging Department, identified by the pseudonym Y, earlier on Monday told reporters that she had been bullied by a male senior colleague who arranged shifts in her department. In January, shortly after she became pregnant, Y asked the department director if she could avoid overnight