The government has raised its travel warnings for several Middle Eastern countries affected by the ongoing regional conflict, following airstrikes by the US and Israel on Iran over the weekend.
The travel alerts for Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were raised late yesterday from yellow to orange — the second-highest level — warning citizens to avoid unnecessary travel to those destinations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.
Photo: EPA
Under the ministry's four-tier travel alert system, advisories are classified as gray, yellow, orange and red, in ascending order of risk.
The ministry had already raised the travel alert for Israel and Iran to the highest level after Israel and the US launched airstrikes on Iran on Saturday.
In case of emergency, Taiwanese in the Middle East can call the nearest representative office for assistance or ask their families in Taiwan to contact MOFA's 24/7 toll-free emergency hotline at +886-800-085-095, the ministry said.
As of today, no official requests had been made by Taiwanese nationals in the Middle East seeking government assistance for evacuation, the ministry said.
The ministry said it has made contact with about 3,000 Taiwanese nationals in the Middle East, and they are all safe.
MOFA also said that consular assistance to overseas Taiwanese should not be used as a "political tool," referring to a statement by China's embassy in Israel early yesterday that it would evacuate all Chinese nationals, as well as Taiwanese who hold travel permits for entry to China, from Israel amid the escalating conflict with Iran.
The Taiwan government currently has no immediate plans to evacuate Taiwanese in Middle Eastern countries, given that Iran's retaliation has been focused on US military sites in the region rather than on civilians, MOFA said.
Conflict has broken out in the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, beginning on Saturday, after weeks of threats from US President Donald Trump, who cited Iran's nuclear capabilities.
The airstrikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior leaders on Saturday morning, and resulted in hundreds of other casualties, according to Iranian state media and nongovernmental organizations.
In response, multiple Arab states hosting US military assets were targeted by Iran.
Trump has suggested the conflict with Iran could continue for the next four weeks, international media reported.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS