A Philippine emissary will pay a second visit to Taiwan next week in a mission to settle a row over Manila’s deportation of a group of Taiwanese fraud suspects to China early last month, Philippine presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said yesterday.
Lacierda said Manuel Roxas, an emissary appointed by Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, will visit Taiwan again today and tomorrow in an effort to bring the dispute to an end.
Lacierda described the mediation process between the two countries, through the emissary Roxas, as a “good development.”
However, he could not disclose what issues Roxas would discuss with Taiwanese officials. He only expressed hope that the deportation row could come to an end as soon as possible.
Roxas visited Taipei late last month to explain his country’s actions, but made no formal apology before leaving Taiwan.
On Feb. 2, the Philippines deported 14 Taiwanese suspected of involvement in fraud schemes in China, sparking a furious response from Taiwan.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) demanded a formal apology from the Philippines, while Taiwanese authorities threatened to retaliate with measures that would curb the number Philippine workers in Taiwan.
In response, Aquino said Manila was willing to settle the dispute through concrete actions, but held firm that the Philippines would not issue a formal apology.
On Tuesday, in a move that could be perceived as an effort by Manila to mend ties, the Philippines deported a new Taiwanese suspect in another cross-strait scam back to Taiwan.
Manila officials confirmed on Thursday that the top Philippine immigration official had been replaced and admitted that he was linked to the deportation incident.
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