The US and Taiwan are working together to help the Marshall Islands rebuild its parliament building, which was recently destroyed by fire, and to strengthen the Pacific nation’s resilience, the US Department of State said.
Following US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s visit to Palau and the Marshall Islands on Wednesday and Thursday, Washington announced that it would provide US$13 million to rebuild the Nitijela parliament building, “in conjunction with support from Taiwan.”
The building was seriously damaged in a fire in the early hours of Aug. 26. No estimate of the financial losses has yet been released.
Photo: CNA
After the incident, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) directed Taiwan’s embassy in the Marshall Islands to assess the situation and convey Taipei’s concern and sympathy to the Marshallese government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time.
The US State Department said that, in coordination with Taiwan, the US is also providing US$8.3 million “to help replace Air Marshall Islands’ aging fleet and provide disaster relief capacity to outer islands, including Kwajalein Atoll, where the United States has critical military assets.”
“This initiative will enhance transportation links across the RMI’s [Republic of the Marshall Islands] vast geography, facilitating economic development and humanitarian efforts,” it said in an online fact sheet.
Palau and the Marshall Islands are diplomatic allies of Taiwan.
In response to the State Department’s fact sheet, the ministry said it welcomed continued Taiwan-US cooperation in the Pacific, adding that such efforts would help promote peace, stability and prosperity not only in the two Pacific nations, but across the wider Indo-Pacific region.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS