Three days before the World Health Assembly (WHA) is to convene, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday repeated his call that the Chinese government not try to silence Taiwan in its calls to join the World Health Organization (WHO), saying that it would only enlarge the gap between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
"Turning Taiwan down simply will isolate Taiwan and its 23 million citizens," the president said when receiving a delegation headed for the World Health Assembly (WHA).
"Taiwan should not be forever shut outside the doors of the WHO by China," he said.
Chen restated that there are no boundaries in the medical world and pursuit of the best possible health care is a basic human right.
"No country has the right to use any excuses to prevent another country from attaining medical care, but that is what Taiwan is going through," Chen said.
"A rejection of Taiwan is tantamount to depriving all 23 million Taiwanese of their rights to have welfare and security," he said.
The president then called on the delegates to work together and mobilize their full strength to stand up and speak for Taiwan to bring the true voice of Taiwan to the international community.
Meanwhile, the president yesterday wrote a letter to the Pope John Paul II, asking for his support of Taiwan's WHO bid.
"The SARS outbreak is high-lighting the importance of all-inclusive engagement in international cooperation. As we seek to control this disease, victory will require global collaboration which is not subject to the discriminatory choosing of participants," Chen said in the letter to the Pontiff.
"As Taiwan strives to take its rightful seat in institutions like the WHO, we will be counting on the support of .... the Catholic leadership.
"For the sake of Taiwan's 23 million citizens, including our health workers who are forced to fight SARS without any support and assistance from WHO, I sincerely hope Your Holiness will stand behind us in this just pursuit," he wrote.
The Vatican is one of 27 countries which have diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
RSS