Taiwan is to improve communication with other nations to obtain the latest international counterterrorism information and is to increase security at its overseas representative offices, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said yesterday, after the nation’s flag was shown for a second time in a video reportedly released by an extremist group.
Wang said the ministry was aware of a new video, claimed by the Islamic State (IS), which showed an image of the national flags of 60 nations, including Taiwan.
It is the second time in less than a month that the flag has been shown in an Islamic State video.
Wang said the ministry has asked its overseas representative offices to increase security and improve communication with host nations to obtain the latest counterterrorism information.
The ministry is also to update overseas travel information on the of the Bureau of Consular Affairs Web site as necessary, Wang said.
The new video depicts the Islamic State’s vision of the apocalypse, foreign media said.
It is titled Meeting at Dabiq, which refers to the location of a mythological final battle between Muslim and Crusader forces.
It also shows an Islamic State armored unit advancing toward the Roman Colosseum, in a reference to the imperial Roman Army of about 500 BC to 476 AD, reports said.
On Nov. 24, another video reportedly released by the Islamic State showed the flags of 60 nations, including Taiwan, which are part of an international coalition against the Islamic State group.
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
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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