Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Attorney General Grenville Williams on Wednesday lauded Taiwan’s efforts to co-organize an international workshop on tackling transnational fraud in Taipei.
Williams was in Taiwan for the Global Cooperation and Training Framework’s International Workshop on Combating Transnational Fraud, which was held from Monday to Wednesday in Taipei.
About 270 civil society specialists, experts, officials and private-sector representatives from 24 countries participated and shared their experience and best practices.
Photo: CNA
The event was “professionally put together and well-executed, Williams told local media.
This spoke to Taiwan’s ability to bring together countries around the world to discuss important issues, he said.
Having participants from around the world also helped reinforce the global network of law enforcement policymakers and facilitate continued education and awareness, which is crucial to combating fraud and other criminality, he added.
St Vincent, which has maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan since 1981, will continue cooperating with Taiwan in law enforcement through existing channels, he said.
This includes a memorandum of understanding signed in 2017 to tackle transnational crime through the exchange of information and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, of which both countries are members, he added.
Internationally, Williams said that as a member of the UN and as part of the governing body of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, St Vincent would continue to support Taiwan’s participation in fighting crime and other areas.
Those international organizations offer opportunities for Taiwan and St Vincent to show that “we might be small, but we should be given accorded respect as any other nation,” he said.
“Taiwan is a very developed country compared to St Vincent and the Grenadines, but we, Taiwan and St Vincent and Grenadines, are not always recognized at the global level as equal states,” he said.
“We are friends of all, but we are special friends of Taiwan, and we will continue to be special friends of Taiwan,” Williams said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on