The nation has donated 100,000 masks to Ethiopia, showing that “Taiwan can help” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ home country combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry wrote on its official Twitter account that “#TaiwanCanHelp #Africa, as well as @DrTedros’ home country, combat #Coronavirus,” along with a photograph showing both countries’ national flags on boxed masks.
Taiwan-WHO tensions spiked after Tedros in April accused Taiwanese of having launched racist attacks on him for months and said that the ministry also joined the attacks.
Screen grab from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Twitter account
Despite unprecedented support for Taiwan’s bid to join the global health body, it was denied participation at this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), whose 73rd session took place as a virtual meeting on May 18 and 19.
As Ethiopia had reported 3,954 confirmed cases and 65 deaths as of Friday, Taiwan made the donation to show that “Taiwan can help, and Taiwan is helping,” the ministry said in a news release.
The masks were transferred to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health for distribution, it said.
The foreign ministry was asked whether Ethiopia requested the masks, but no response was given as of press time last night.
Tedros was Ethiopian minister of foreign affairs from 2012 to 2016 and minister of health from 2005 to 2012. In July 2017, he became the first person from Africa to serve as the WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer.
A ceremony marking the donation took place at the Ethiopian embassy in Pretoria on Thursday, which was attended by Representative to South Africa Matthew Chou (周唯中) and Ethiopian Ambassador to South Africa Shiferaw Teklemariam, the foreign ministry said.
As Taiwan does not have a representative office in Ethiopia, its diplomatic affairs with it are managed by the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa, it said.
“The donation of the surgical masks is just the first step for Taiwan to join Ethiopia’s efforts to fight against the coronavirus pandemic together in Africa,” Chou was quoted as saying in a statement released by the office.
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
RSS