The Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday unveiled a new advertisement to promote the nation's bid to participate in the WHO.
On the advertisement, WHO is written as "WHC," with the "C" representing an incomplete "O" to deliver the message that as Taiwan is not yet a member, the organization is not complete.
"As you can see, on the advertisement, WHO is written as `WHC' because Taiwan is not in the organization so the `O' is not complete," GIO deputy minister William Yih (
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The WHO Secretariat rejected Taiwan's latest bid to participate in the organization on April 25 after President Chen Shui-bian (
The World Health Assembly (WHA), the highest decision-making body of the WHO, will hold a meeting in Geneva starting on May 14.
Yih said the GIO will place the advert in the Financial Times and International Herald Tribune newspapers on May 12 and May 13, on the eve of the WHA meeting.
"We believe these two newspapers are available in most hotels where delegates attending the meetings will stay. Therefore, placing the advertisement in the newspapers will be the best way to deliver our message," he said.
Meanwhile, shouting "WHO, Taiwan Go Go Go!" next to the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a group of activists yesterday presented a petition to the institute and urged the US to support the country's efforts to seek full WTO membership using the name "Taiwan."
The WHO Secretariat's rejection of Taiwan's bid to join the organization under the name Taiwan ignored the health rights of the people of Taiwan and created a hole in the global health net, the group said.
"Taiwan is the only country excluded from the WHO and it is due to China's obstruction. The health rights of its 23 million citizens are neglected and its absence also damages the rights of foreign people living or traveling here," vice president of the alliance Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) said.
After singing a Taiwanese folk song called "Mending the Net" (
AIT press officer Lawrence Walker received the petition while urging Taiwan to focus on meaningful participation in the WHO.
Twu and the Reverend William Lo (羅榮光), secretary general of the group, protested against Walker's remarks, arguing that Taiwan should enjoy the right to apply for full WHO membership as a sovereign state.
"Meaningful participation is meaningless. China gets to decide what kind of participation is meaningful for Taiwan, and we've never had a meaningful participation in the WHO due to China's obstruction," Twu said.
Twu said the alliance would invite the Presidential Office to write letters to foreign countries to protest the WHO rejection.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
RSS