Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and former Slovenian Prime Minister Ivan Jansa are among those set to speak at the annual Yushan Foreign in Taipei from Monday to Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
Other big names appearing at the Taiwan government- funded forum include Czech Republic Senator Pavel Fischer, former Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga, and former Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas, MOFA said in a news release.
Former Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement, and veteran Japanese lawmaker Keiji Furuya, who chairs the 270-member Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council, will also join the event, it added.
Photo: Yang Cheng-yu, Taipei Times
President William Lai (賴清德) and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) will both speak at the forum today, MOFA said.
The eighth edition of the Yushan Forum this year will expand the concept of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy to include more global partners, it said.
The New Southbound Policy was launched by former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2016 to promote trade and investment, and people-to-people ties with 18 countries in the absence of formal diplomatic relations.
The countries originally targeted by the New Southbound Policy were Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Australia, and New Zealand.
This year the Yushan Forum is to be held under the theme of “New Southbound Policy+: Taiwan, the Indo- Pacific, and a New World.”
MOFA said that this year’s forum aims to include more like-minded partners in discussions on how Taiwan is taking advantage of smart, digital and innovative, solutions to promote the so-called “Digital New Southbound Policy.”
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
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‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
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