Taiwan's national medical relief team yesterday arrived in Aceh, Indonesia, one of the areas hardest-hit by last Sunday's earthquake and ensuing tidal waves.
The seven member rescue team sent by the Department of Health will set up a makeshift medical base near the Aceh airport. Another five Taiwanese doctors remained in Medan, a city just outside Aceh province to coordinate relief efforts.
The Department of Health will also dispatch a third medical relief team to the tsunami-ravaged Thai resort area of Phuket on Jan. 4 at the earliest. The third national medical relief team will bring a supply of anti-malaria medication and disinfectants to help prevent a possible outbreak of contagious diseases in Phuket.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was in Banda Aceh to inspect the aftermath of the disaster, expressed his gratitude for the assistance and supplies provided by Taiwan.
In related news, a 42-member medical mission organized by the non-governmental organization Taiwan Roots Medical Peace Corps left yesterday for Sri Lanka to help victims of the tsunami disaster there.
The group will deliver 2,500kg of medicine and other medical supplies.
Corps head Liu Chi-hsiang (
While this is the the corp's 126th overseas medical aid mission, the organization made two other medical missions to Sri Lanka last year, Liu said.
The group is set to return to Taiwan on Jan. 9.
The state-run Chunghwa Telecom, in collaboration with the Council of Labor Affairs, has begun offering subscribers five-minute toll-free phone calls to countries ravaged by the tsunamis, the company's chairman Ho Chen Tan (
Under the terms of the offer, Ho Chen said at a news conference, any subscriber's first call each day with the 019 prefix to Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives will be free of charge for the first five minutes. The offer will run through Jan. 7.
Given that Taiwan has 28,000 Indonesian workers and about 100,000 Thai workers, Ho Chen urged their employers to tell them of the program, adding that Chunghwa will also set up service stations in Taipei, Taoyuan, Yunlin and Kaohsiung counties, all of which have large populations of foreign workers.
He estimated that the program will cost his company about NT$10 million (US$314,911).
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods