A Taiwan-friendly group was on Thursday established in Germany’s Bavarian State Parliament with the aim of promoting closer links with Taiwan.
The Taiwan Friendship Group — Freundeskreis Bayern-Taiwan in German — was formally launched at a ceremony chaired by Bavarian Parliament Deputy Speaker Markus Rinderspacher, who said he decided to spearhead the formation of the group after his visit to Taiwan in November last year.
The goal is to support democratic Taiwan, promote interactions between the parliament and Taiwan, and deepen Bavaria-Taiwan friendship, Rinderspacher said.
Earlier this year, the European Affairs Committee in the Bavarian Parliament passed a resolution to support Taiwan’s bid for participation in the WHO as an observer.
Landlocked Bavaria is Germany’s largest state and is home to many international manufacturers, including Siemens, BMW, Audi and Adidas.
Twenty-two of the state’s universities have established exchange programs with 30 universities in Taiwan, while Starnberg, a town near the Bavarian capital, Munich, has sister-city ties with New Taipei City and Hualien City.
In other news, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said that Taiwan has been included among several countries whose citizens would be eligible to apply for Russia’s new electronic visa next year.
In a statement, the ministry said that it welcomed the initiative, which it believes would help promote cooperation and exchanges on the basis of existing bilateral relations.
The ministry’s comments came after the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission on Economic and Cultural Cooperation on Facebook announced that Russia was to launch a new electronic visa system next year.
“According to the Russian government, foreign nationals, including Taiwanese, who plan to visit Russia for tourism, business, humanitarian and guest purposes can enter via the specially equipped checkpoints and travel throughout the country,” the announcement read.
The duration of the visas for Taiwanese has been extended from eight to 16 days, it said, adding that the fee would be US$40, but free for children aged 6 or below.
According to foreign media reports, the new e-visa program is available to the citizens of 52 countries, including Taiwan, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia and Finland.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching