Department of Health Minister Hou Sheng-mao (侯勝茂) yesterday said the nation's participation in international organizations should not be arranged through other countries and that national dignity was the bottom line in these efforts.
Hou made the remarks in response to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴世葆), who suggested that Taiwan use the title "Chinese Taipei" in its bid to enter the World Health Assembly (WHA) -- the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Yang and Lai argued that the title was viable because it had been used to enter a number of other global organizations, including the WTO, and was acceptable to China, which has blocked Taiwan from joining international organizations where statehood is required.
Hou said that although the department had tried its best to get Taiwan into the WHO, the efforts had been made under the principle that Taiwan could freely speak to other member countries without having to rely on a "third nation" playing the role of a go-between.
On the title that Taiwan should use for its WHA bid, Hou said that a country's name in an international organization was a matter that reflected on its sovereignty, and therefore was a matter that could be decided only by the president or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The bottom line was to seek substantive representation in the organization while upholding national dignity, Hou said, adding that Taiwan was not considering joining the WHA under the title "Center for Disease Control [CDC], Taiwan."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching