Taiwan’s embassy in Port-au-Prince would continue to work with the new government as it seeks to restore order after months of gang-related violence, while maintaining Taiwan-Haiti ties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, created in April to re-establish democratic order in the nation, signed a decree on Nov. 10 to fire then-interim Haitian prime minister Garry Conille after five months, replacing him with Alix Didier Fils-Aime, a businessman who was previously considered for the job, The Associated Press reported on Monday last week.
Council chairman Leslie Voltaire and Fils-Aime on Saturday inaugurated Haiti’s reshuffled government at Villa d’Accueil in Musseau.
Photo: AFP
The new Cabinet comprises 18 ministers, signaling a new chapter in the transition after the firing of Conille as the country grapples with mounting insecurity and political instability, the online newspaper Haitian Times reported on Monday.
In Taipei, Cheng Li-cheng (鄭力城), head of the ministry’s Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Department, confirmed that Fils-Aime was named the new prime minister on Monday last week and that his Cabinet was inaugurated on Saturday.
Ambassador to Haiti Hu Cheng-hao (胡正浩) was invited to the inauguration event, where he expressed the government’s willingness to deepen bilateral cooperation with the new administration, Cheng said.
The ambassador also expressed that Taiwan’s embassy would continue to cooperate with the new government to assist it in the country’s transition process and to maintain its friendship with Haiti, he said.
Regarding security issues in the Caribbean country, Cheng said local gang violence in the Solino neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, the capital, has forced many residents to flee the area in the past few days.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has since Tuesday last week banned US flights to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot at three planes, he added.
Taiwan’s embassy in Haiti is still open, and consular employees and their family members, as well as Taiwanese in Haiti are safe, Cheng said, adding that the embassy continues to keep close contact with Haiti’s police and armed forces, other countries embassies in the nation and the foreign ministry.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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