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Taiwan President Invites Koizumi To Open Railway
Taipei (AFP) Sep 28, 2006 Taiwan on Wednesday invited Japan's former prime minister Ju nichiro Koizumi to attend the opening of the island's Japan-built high-speed rail system, the presidential office said. President Chen Shui-bian delivered the invitation through Taiwan's de facto embassy in Tokyo, the presidential office said in a statement. "Taiwan's high-speed rail is the export of your country's Shinkansen technology for the first time. The system is scheduled to be inaugurated this year," Chen said. Chen also voiced his gratitude to Koizumi for his "protracted efforts to strengthen (the) relationship between the two countries." Observers said if Koizumi accepted the invitation for late October, it could rile Beijing which regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with mainland China, by force if necessary. Tokyo has stepped up exchanges with Taiwan over past few years despite a lack of diplomatic recognition of the island. Its ties with Beijing have been strained over Koizumi's visits to a controversial shrine, which honors Japan's war dead include top class war criminals. Beijing has also protested to Tokyo for allowing Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui, whom Beijing labelled a "splitist," to visit Japan. Taiwan has governed itself since its split with China in 1949 at the end of a civil war. Japan's Taiwan Shinkansen Consortium in 1998 won a 3.0 billion US dollar contract to supply the core system -- trains and carriages as well as the signalling, electrification, communications and operation control systems -- in the island's first high-speed rail system. The 345-kilometer (215-mile) bullet train service will link the capital Taipei with the island's second city of Kaohsiung in the south.
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links - Great Train Journey's of the 21st Century
DHS Transit Grants Sweeten Pill
Washington (UPI) Sep 26, 2006The Department of Homeland Security has rolled out the last $191 million tranche of its controversial 2006 grant program -- the risk-based funding allocations for ports, mass transit and intercity bus systems across the United States. Monday's announcement was the second and final part of the Infrastructure Protection Program grant awards. |
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