The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that is to focus on attending the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May rather than organizing a formal proposal to participate in the WHO executive board meeting.
Due to political factors, pushing for participation in the WHO has been an extremely difficult and lengthy mission, despite the cause’s legitimacy and growing support from the international community, Department of International Organizations Director-General Bob Chen (陳龍錦) told a news conference in Taipei.
“This year, the primary goal of our campaign is to secure an invitation for Taiwan to attend the 72nd WHA as an observer,” Chen said.
Pushing for formal participation at the WHO executive board meeting would not be the best focus of government efforts, as the board only has 34 members and its meetings are mostly attended by government officials and specialists, while health ministers of 194 member states participate in the WHA, Chen said.
“The WHA carries more significance and generally attracts greater international media attention,” Chen said, adding that key members of the WHO executive board have also been reluctant to support Taiwan’s cause at their meetings, which are convened to discuss technical and professional issues rather than political matters.
Another reason for the ministry’s decision is because the board does not have a final say on issues such as Taiwan’s participation in the WHA — it can only suggest putting the nation’s cause on the WHA’s provisional agenda, Chen added.
Government agencies are in communication with like-minded nations to develop a strategy for its bid to participate in the WHA as an observer, Chen said, adding that the plan would be announced when ready.
Taiwan in 1997 began seeking an invitation to the WHA’s annual meetings and was invited as an observer in 2009 under the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration.
Beijing in 2017 and last year blocked such invitations to show its displeasure with the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Taiwan United Nations Alliance chairman Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) said that the government should ask the nation’s diplomatic allies to submit a proposal at the WHO executive board meeting urging China to publicize information about the African swine fever epidemic to its neighboring countries, including Taiwan.
Doing so would make Taiwan more qualified to attend this year’s WHA, he added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS