KAOHSIUNG
Health ambassador picked
Chen Chao-long (陳肇隆), a leading expert on liver transplants, on Monday said that he has agreed to serve as Kaohsiung’s “healthcare ambassador,” to promote the city’s medical sector to the world. An honorary superintendent of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chen said that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Friday asked if he was interested in taking on the role. “If it means doing good for Kaohsiung, then I’m up for it,” he said. Chen performed the first successful liver transplant in Asia in 1984 and performed the first living donor liver transplant in the nation in 1994. He has published more than 270 scientific articles and has lectured at nearly 200 international conferences. He also trains surgeons at home and abroad. Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital has carried out more than 1,830 liver transplants, including 115 on foreign patients who visited Kaohsiung for the procedure.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Paraguay delegation visits
Taiwan expects to work hand in hand with Paraguay to advance bilateral trade and investment, and develop public infrastructure to create a win-win situation for both countries, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said on Monday. Tsai made the pledge while welcoming a visiting delegation led by Silvio Ovelar, president of Paraguay’s Chamber of Senators. Visits to Taiwan by Ovelar, the delegates and other Paraguayan friends of Taiwan have contributed to deepening the friendship between the two countries over the past 61 years, Tsai said, adding that her administration is committed to enhancing bilateral cooperation in trade, investment and infrastructure based on talks she had with Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez during his state visit in October last year.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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