The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that Taiwanese passport holders would soon receive visa-waiver status from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and three of its constituent countries, pending a decision on the matter by one of the countries in question, Sint Maarten.
Of the Netherlands’ autonomous countries, Aruba and Curacao have already agreed to grant visa-free privileges to Republic of China (ROC) citizens, while Sint Maarten is still deliberating the proposal, Department of European Affairs director-general James Lee (李光章) said.
Lee said the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs would announce that Taiwanese citizens are also to be allowed entry to its three special municipalities — Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba, known as the BES islands — without visas once Sint Maarten approves the visa-waiver proposal.
In related news, local business travelers and travel agencies said yesterday that the benefits of visa-free status for Republic of China passport holders in the Schengen Area of Europe were gradually becoming apparent.
Lin Cheng-ye (林承曄), deputy general manager of Lion Travel Service Co, said that from April to last month bookings for Europe rose 40 percent compared with the same period last year, mainly because of the visa waiver program.
Since the Schengen visa-waiver program came into effect on Jan. 11, Taiwan passport holders have been able to travel to several European countries without visas. As a result, demand for trips to that part of the world has increased dramatically according to local travel agencies.
One of the benefits is that Taiwanese visitors to Europe are no longer required to pay the visa fee of NT$3,000, assistant manager at South East Travel Services Johnny Tseng (曾國澄) said.
General Chamber of Commerce chairman Chang Ping-chao (張平沼) said the visa-waiver program makes it much more convenient for business travelers, especially Taiwanese businesspeople in China.
Previously, ROC residents were required to return to Taiwan for two weeks to apply for a Schengen visa before visiting Europe, he said.
Now, with the visa waiver program in place, Taiwanese businesspeople in China can travel to Europe whenever they like, he added.
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