Taiwan could play an important role in global efforts to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said on Sunday at a reception in Geneva, Switzerland, held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The spread of communicable diseases knows no borders, Chen said, adding that as a hub in Asia that receives many international travelers, Taiwan, which has cultivated advanced medical services and technologies, plays an important role in preventing the spread of infectious diseases.
A delegation led by Chen arrived in the city on Saturday and is to hold a series of events on the sidelines of the 71st annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), which Taiwan has for the second consecutive year not been invited to attend as an observer due to opposition from China.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
At the reception, which was attended by representatives of Taiwan’s 19 allies, Chen said that the WHO’s exclusion of Taiwan from the WHA meeting is unfair to Taiwan and violates the organization’s platform, which designates healthcare as a universal value.
Taiwan’s participation in the WHA has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with basic human rights, Chen said.
Echoing Chen, Marshallese Minister of Health Kalani Kaneko said Taiwan not only needs the WHO, but the WHO needs Taiwan.
He cited the theme of this year’s WHA: “Health for All, All for Health.”
The Marshall Islands is one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
The leaders of all countries in the world should promote healthcare as a universal value to everybody on the planet to realize the message of the WHA meeting, Kaneko said.
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