A visit by two ministers to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) came under fire from People First Party lawmakers yesterday.
Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (
Taiwan is keen to build economic relations with nations like the UAE, despite its difficulties in establishing diplomatic ties around the world, Huang was quoted as saying in an Abu Dhabi newspaper yesterday.
The English-language Khaleej Times said Huang made the remark in a meeting with Moham-med Galadari, the chairman of the Galadari Group, which owns the newspaper.
Taiwan does not have diplomatic ties with the UAE.
The Khaleej Times said Huang was in the UAE on a "two-day private holiday."
Back in Taipei, however, Huang's trip came in for some criticism yesterday, as People First Party (PFP) legislators wanted to know who was paying the travel expenses for Huang and Kao and their family mem-bers who had accompanied them to Abu Dhabi.
The lawmakers said Huang and Kao should step down if their expenses were paid by the airline.
PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) said it was strange for the foreign minister to be accompanied by his family rather than by ministry officials who speak Arabic or by the top executive of the Sino-Arabian Cultural and Eco-nomic Association.
Huang's wife and son accompanied him on the trip, while Kuo brought her husband along.
In Abu Dhabi, Huang defended his decision to bring his family, saying that since his visit was defined as a "private matter" -- in the face of pressure from China on the UAE -- there was more room for interpretation.
News reports from Abu Dhabi quoted Huang's aides as confirming that China Airlines had provided tickets for Huang and his wife, while they paid for a ticket for their son, which was upgraded to first class through frequent flier miles.
The aides said the UAE government was paying for the Huangs' hotel stay.
Meanwhile, Vice Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) said in Taipei yesterday that the Bureau of Tourism had paid the travel and hotel expenses for Kuo and the four other ministry officials, and that Kuo's husband had paid his own way.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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