Two mobile medical missions Taiwan sent to Guatemala and Haiti to help with the aftermath of natural disasters in those countries “caused a sensation,” the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) said.
As the mission to Guatemala reached out to several “very remote rural settlements to which even the country’s own medical staff would not go,” it was very much welcomed by the local residents, ICDF secretary-general Chen Lien-gene (陳連軍) said on Thursday,
He said the 10-member mission, including physicians, surgeons, pharmacists and nurses from Taipei Medical University Hospital, visited eight towns in Izabal and Chiquimula provinces during its two-week stay in Guatemala.
The mission provided much-needed medical assistance and supplies, benefiting around 3,000 people, in the wake of widespread flooding and landslides caused by a week of incessant rain in October, Chen said.
In addition, Taiwan’s first mobile medical mission to Haiti provided care to around 2,650 people who suffered from recent disasters in the capital, Port-au-Prince, he said.
A series of devastating storms killed nearly 800 Haitians and left hundreds injured in August and September, while approximately 500 students and teachers perished when a school in Port-au-Prince collapsed last month.
Chen said that including these two medical missions, the ICDF had dispatched 18 missions, comprising 165 medical staff, to 13 countries this year, helping around 30,000 people.
The ICDF, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is tasked with providing technical assistance, investment and loans, international human resources and humanitarian aid to countries in need, whether or not they have diplomatic relations with 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