A government-funded agency said applications for its annual overseas volunteer program would be closed on Thursday next week, urging Taiwanese interested in the program to submit their applications ahead of the deadline.
The agency is seeking to recruit 12 volunteers in the areas of public health, agriculture, information and communications technology, education and environmental protection, International Cooperation and Development Fund deputy secretary-general Lee Pai-po (李柏浡) said.
The selected volunteers are to be sent to Swaziland in Africa and Paraguay in South America, as well as St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Dominican Republic and Belize in the Caribbean and Central America.
They are to be the first group of volunteers to be sent overseas by the agency this year. The other group is to be sent to work in Thailand and Tuvalu.
All of the selected volunteers are to receive training in Taiwan before they depart for their one-year posting, the agency said.
The agency began sending volunteers overseas in 1996 and has so far dispatched 655 volunteers to a total of 37 nations in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
The program aims to provide humanitarian and other types of assistance to the nation’s diplomatic allies and nations with good relations with Taiwan, the agency said.
The foreign aid programs promote socioeconomic development and economic relations with less-developed nations. The agency also offers humanitarian assistance in the event of natural disasters or refugee crises.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry