Taiwan has decided not to participate in an international conference on combating H1N1 influenza slated to be held in Beijing today as the country was asked to register under the name “Taiwan, China,” a Department of Health (DOH) official said yesterday.
“We didn’t register for the conference because it’s inappropriate that Taiwan be called ‘Taiwan, China,’” DOH spokesman Wang Che-chao (王哲超) said.
The conference, titled International Scientific Symposium on Influenza Pandemic Response and Preparedness, is available for online registration, but the DOH did not sign up, Wang said.
Sponsored by China’s health ministry and co-sponsored by the WHO and the medical periodical the Lancet, the conference will take place today and tomorrow.
The formal name for Taiwan to attend international conferences is the Republic of China, Wang said.
“If for some reason it is not allowed to use the formal name, we will accept ‘Chinese Taipei’ out of respect for the host,” Wang said. “We will launch a protest against hosts if other names are used, such as ‘Taiwan, China.’”
STUDENTS RETURN
Meanwhile, a total of 237 Taiwanese students, several of whom tested positive for the A(H1N1) influenza virus in South Korea, returned to Taiwan yesterday on two charter flights arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
The 238-member group, which is composed of tour guides as well as students and teachers from National Taiwan Normal University, Kuang Hwa Junior High School in Hsinchu City and Er Chong Junior High School in Hsinchu County, were in South Korea to attend the 14th Jeju International Wind Ensemble Festival.
The group was quarantined in a resort on Jeju island after some members of the group developed high fevers on Monday. Fifteen members of the group were later confirmed to have the A(H1N1) flu, also known as swine flu.
Apart from one tour guide who flew to Italy, the group returned to Taiwan yesterday morning on two TransAsia Airways charter flights.
The 15 confirmed flu cases will receive the necessary treatment, while the rest will be quarantined and monitored.
MOFA STATEMENT
James Chang (章計平), MOFA’s deputy, denied at a regular press briefing yesterday accusations made by some teachers that the ministry acted slowly in providing assistance to the group.
Chang said that officials from the Foreign Ministry’s representative office in Seoul and Busan immediately went to Jeju on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, upon learning that 15 of the students had the flu.
The CDC on Wednesday confirmed five more clusters of swine flu infection in Taiwan, bringing the total number on record to 48.
Among the five latest clusters reported, two were at hospitals, two at junior high schools and one at an after-school care center.
The CDC had also confirmed three more cases of severe influenza A(H1N1) infection, bringing the total to 28. They were a 45-year-old female patient at National Taiwan University Hospital, a six-year-old boy with acute lymphoid leukemia and a seven-year-old girl with a ventricular septal defect.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS