The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has advised against traveling to South Africa due to poor public security and warned of telephone scams targeting overseas Taiwanese.
The ministry issued an “orange” travel alert for South Africa at the end of last month due to an increase in cholera cases, rolling power cuts and deteriorating law and order.
South African Police Service statistics showed that 6,289 people were murdered in the first quarter of this year, up 3.4 percent from the same period last year, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Deputy Director Wu Cheng-wei (吳正偉) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: screen grab from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web cast
There are an average of 13 carjacking, robbery or theft cases every hour in South Africa, which also indicates a deterioration in law and order, Wu said.
The Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa recently received reports from a number of overseas Taiwanese, who said they had received suspicious phone calls and were asked to provide their bank account information or transfer money, he said.
The callers pretended to be staff from the Chinese embassy in South Africa or South African government or law enforcement agencies, Wu said.
The callers said that there were documents or packages waiting for them to collect, that their taxes were in arrears or they were involved in criminal cases in China, he said.
Wu urged people to be aware of these fraudulent practices and to refrain from transferring money or providing account information over the phone.
In case of an emergency, Taiwanese in South Africa can call the local liaison office at 082-802-9380 or the ministry’s emergency number +886-800-085-095, he said.
He also warned about an increase in employment scams in the Caucasus region, where some Taiwanese were recruited to engage in illegal work such as telecom fraud.
Groups have lured Taiwanese with promises of high salaries, then isolated and held them prisoner once they were abroad, he said.
The ministry urged jobseekers to look into the background of the companies they are interested in working for and check whether they are legally registered locally, he said.
When encountering emergencies in countries where Taiwan has no representative office, people can call the emergency line to seek help, he said.
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS