A leading supporter of Taiwan in the US House of Representatives has proposed that a prominent Taiwanese-American scientist be selected to join the US delegation to a special technical briefing on SARS planned by the World Health Organization (WHO) next week.
Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, co-chairman of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus and Congress' leading promoter of Taiwan's role in the WHO, sent a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, urging him to allow the scientist, Dr. Michael Lai (賴明詔), to attend the meeting.
Lai, a world-renowned biologist, is professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the University of South California. He is one of the pioneer scientists in the US in the field of coronaviruses, which researchers have determined are the cause of SARS.
Brown requested that Lai be included in the US delegation to the World Health Assembly so he can attend the briefing.
"Dr. Lai is familiar with Taiwan's SARS situation and has the ability to share detailed knowledge of the medical advances Taiwan has made so far," Brown said in the letter.
"Dr. Lai is a renowned authority and a pioneer in the study of coronavirus, which is associated with SARS.
"He has characterized steps to coronavirus replication during the past 25 years and discovered the phenomenon of RNA recombination, which is linked to coronavirus evolution," Brown said.
"He authored a chapter on the coronavirus in the Fields Virology textbook. His views on SARS have been widely quoted in numerous major publications and news media since the advent of the epidemic," he said.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
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