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.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique