Two Venezuelan helicopters left for Colombia yesterday morning on a mission to pick up four rebel-held hostages who have spent more than six years in captivity, the Red Cross said.
The Venezuelan helicopters took off from the Venezuelan border town of Santo Domingo, said Yves Heller, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesman in Bogota.
The two helicopters bore Red Cross insignia and were headed for an airport in the southern Colombian town of San Jose de Guaviare, he said. From there, the helicopters were to take off again for an unidentified spot in the Colombian jungles for the handover.
PHOTO: EPA
Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have pledged to free four former Colombian politicians, including Gloria Polanco, former senator Luis Eladio Perez, former congressman Orlando Beltran and ailing former congressman Jorge Gechem.
The Colombian government had given the Red Cross security guarantees to go forward with the mission, said Barbara Hintermann, head of ICRC operations in the country.
The rebels were to turn the hostages over to officials sent by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, as they did last month with former captives Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, who were reunited with their families in Caracas.
Aboard the helicopters yesterday were Venezuelan Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin and Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, four Red Cross officials and doctors to treat the hostages. Both Polanco and Gechem have health ailments.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)