2. ECFA could help Taiwan to ink regional trade deals: U.S. scholar A proposed trade deal between Taiwan and China could help Taiwan become part of the Asian economic integration and avoid marginalization in the region, a former senior U.S. official responsible for Taiwan affairs said Saturday. Richard C. Bush, former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, made the comments at a seminar at Stanford University on U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations in the Coming Decade. Anticipating that increasing power in China could affect Taiwan's economic development, Bush said that seeking to join international economic and trade organizations could be a feasible approach for Taiwan to maintain its economic momentum. However, Taiwan would have a long way to go to reach that goal because it would still need to obtain China's consent, he added.
3. Bush also said that since China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) established a regional free trade area in January, Taiwan could be at risk of marginalization if it fails to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with key trading partners. Though a proposed cross-Taiwan Strait trade agreement could bring possible benefits and disadvantages for Taiwan, he said, it cannot be ignored that the pact would enable Taiwan to join regional economic integration. Echoing Bushs' view, Daniel Da-nien Liu, a research fellow at the Taiwan-based Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, said that signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China will greatly enhance Taiwan's chances of signing FTAs with other countries and will eventually help to reduce Taiwan's economic reliance on China.
4. Volcano ash, storm prolong Guatemala airport closure Guatemala's La Aurora International Airport will remain shut for another five days as cleaning the ash fallout from the Pacaya volcano has been complicated by rains from Tropical Storm Agatha, officials said Saturday. The airport was closed Friday by huge ash clouds hovering over Guatemala City and surrounding areas that Pacaya spewed out in a new eruption since it became active on Wednesday. "The airport will remain closed at least five days," presidential spokesman Ronald Robles told reporters.
5. Civil aviation officials said they needed the time to remove a blanket of ash centimeters (inches) thick from the runways, adding that driving rains from Agatha as it churned toward Central America made the job more difficult. The Pacaya eruption, the biggest of the active volcanoes since 2006, has so far killed two people, including a television reporter covering the event, and forced the evacuation of some 2,000 people living near the volcano, some 50km (31 miles) south of the capital.
