President Ma still to visit Honduras despite tension
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Page 2
2009-06-29 12:31 AM
President Ma Ying-jeou's plans for visiting Honduras were still on target despite rising political tension in the Central American ally, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Ma is set to leave Taiwan today for a trip including the inauguration of newly elected President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama on July 1 and visits to diplomatic allies Nicaragua and Honduras.
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the military are embroiled in a dispute over the holding of a referendum yesterday about allowing presidents to run for a second term. Troops were reported to have taken to the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa in the dispute.
Ma is scheduled to stay in Honduras on July 4 and 5, where he should sign a joint communique with Zelaya about extended bilateral cooperation. He is due to arrive back in Taiwan on July 8. The voyage will also include stopovers in San Francisco on the way out and in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the way back. Not a single change has been made to Ma's itinerary, but the authorities are closely watching the political developments situation in Honduras, presidential spokesman Wang Yu-chi said yesterday.
If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to make changes to the trip, it would immediately inform the Presidential Office, Wang said.
Originally, the main threats to Ma's trip had been the spread of the A(H1N1) swine flu virus from Mexico to Central America and reports about unstable relations with Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega, who switched diplomatic recognition to China the first time he was in power, in the 1980s.
Ma's latest voyage is his second one to Latin America in a month. On June 1, he attended the inauguration of President Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, where he shook hands with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton under the glare of the media. He also visited allies Belize and Guatemala.
Taiwan's 23 remaining diplomatic allies are mostly small, impoverished nations in Africa, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. Panama is one of the most economically important in the group because of its location on the Panama Canal. Ma will be accompanied by several prominent business people on his trip, though not as many as originally reported.
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Page 2
2009-06-29 12:31 AM
President Ma Ying-jeou's plans for visiting Honduras were still on target despite rising political tension in the Central American ally, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Ma is set to leave Taiwan today for a trip including the inauguration of newly elected President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama on July 1 and visits to diplomatic allies Nicaragua and Honduras.
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the military are embroiled in a dispute over the holding of a referendum yesterday about allowing presidents to run for a second term. Troops were reported to have taken to the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa in the dispute.
Ma is scheduled to stay in Honduras on July 4 and 5, where he should sign a joint communique with Zelaya about extended bilateral cooperation. He is due to arrive back in Taiwan on July 8. The voyage will also include stopovers in San Francisco on the way out and in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the way back. Not a single change has been made to Ma's itinerary, but the authorities are closely watching the political developments situation in Honduras, presidential spokesman Wang Yu-chi said yesterday.
If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to make changes to the trip, it would immediately inform the Presidential Office, Wang said.
Originally, the main threats to Ma's trip had been the spread of the A(H1N1) swine flu virus from Mexico to Central America and reports about unstable relations with Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega, who switched diplomatic recognition to China the first time he was in power, in the 1980s.
Ma's latest voyage is his second one to Latin America in a month. On June 1, he attended the inauguration of President Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, where he shook hands with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton under the glare of the media. He also visited allies Belize and Guatemala.
Taiwan's 23 remaining diplomatic allies are mostly small, impoverished nations in Africa, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. Panama is one of the most economically important in the group because of its location on the Panama Canal. Ma will be accompanied by several prominent business people on his trip, though not as many as originally reported.
