The Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised the nation’s travel alert for Mexico to “red” as the number of suspected swine flu patients in the North American country kept rising yesterday.
A red alert means people should avoid all non-essential travel to Mexico until the crisis has subsided.
A yellow alert was issued for Canada and the US, with people traveling to these countries advised to exercise caution.
Taiwan’s representative office in Mexico City will continue to operate as usual, ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.
Figures released by the Tourism Bureau showed that 78 Taiwanese tourists on a cruise tour were still on their way to Mexico yesterday.
Chen said three or four Taiwanese high school exchange students at King’s-Edgehill private high school in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada, were among a group of 17 people who were quarantined amid concern that they might have contracted the H1N1 swine flu virus.
None of the 17 people was seriously ill, he added.
The ministry said 40 students from Taiwan were participating in an exchange program at the school.
The King’s-Edgehill School Web site said yesterday that four of its students had been confirmed to have contracted swine flu, and that some students had been released from quarantine.
At press time, the ministry remained unable to determine if the Taiwanese students were among the ones released from quarantine.
Liu Ching-jen (劉慶仁), director of the Ministry of Education’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations, said there were no Taiwanese students in Mexico.
“We have nonetheless urged officials at our representative offices in Los Angeles and Houston to alert Taiwanese students in the two cities because of their proximity to Mexico,” Liu said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHELLEY SHAN AND FLORA WANG
FIREPOWER: On top of the torpedoes, the military would procure Kestrel II anti-tank weapons systems to replace aging license-produced M72 LAW launchers Taiwan is to receive US-made Mark 48 torpedoes and training simulators over the next three years, following delays that hampered the navy’s operational readiness, the Ministry of National Defense’s latest budget proposal showed. The navy next year would acquire four training simulator systems for the torpedoes and take receipt of 14 torpedoes in 2027 and 10 torpedoes in 2028, the ministry said in its budget for the next fiscal year. The torpedoes would almost certainly be utilized in the navy’s two upgraded Chien Lung-class submarines and the indigenously developed Hai Kun, should the attack sub successfully reach operational status. US President Donald Trump
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS