The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is seeking to clarify a decision by Italian authorities to ban flights from Taiwan, as a novel coronavirus outbreak first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan spreads around the world.
After Italy on Friday confirmed two 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) cases, it suspended all flights from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau until April 28.
The ban affects Taiwan-based carriers China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Airways.
CAL operates three flights per week between Taoyuan and Rome, while EVA was set to start direct flights to Milan on Feb. 18.
CAL said late last night that Italian aviation authorities had approved its request to send an airplane to Rome today to fly Taiwanese passengers back home the following day.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement on Friday that Italy has not restricted flights from other nations that have reported more infection cases than Taiwan; therefore, its ban on Taiwan cannot be said to be related to the rate of infection in Taiwan.
The Italian government made a wrong decision based on wrong identification, she said.
The ministry is seeking to clarify the situation with the Italian government through its overseas offices and like-minded countries, she said, urging Rome to rectify its decision soon.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) yesterday said that it is unfair that Taiwan has met the same treatment as China, even though Taiwan has better healthcare and disease prevention standards, as well as control over the virus’ spread compared with other countries.
In related news, the Hanoi government last night lifted a ban on flights between Vietnam and Taiwan, reversing a decision it made yesterday afternoon, when it revoked permits for flights from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Cheng Wei-chi
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