A number of issues relating to the supply of Indonesian migrant workers to Taiwan are to be discussed today in a videoconference between officials of the two nations, the Indonesian government said yesterday.
The main issues on the agenda include Taiwan’s ban on Indonesian migrant workers due to COVID-19 concerns and a policy set to be introduced by Jakarta to transfer all preparatory costs of migrant workers to Taiwanese employers, the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers said.
The entry ban was imposed on Wednesday last week by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) and extended the following Friday amid a spike in the number of imported COVID-19 cases from Indonesia.
The decision was made in the interests of protecting the nation’s healthcare system due to the large numbers of imported COVID-19 cases, the CECC said.
The CECC also expressed concern that many Indonesian migrant workers who presented negative COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction tests on arrival had later been found to be infected with the coronavirus.
Indonesian officials have proposed solutions aimed at addressing the COVID-19 test problem, in the hope that Taiwan would lift its indefinite entry ban on migrant workers, sources familiar with the matter said.
However, Taipei has been pushing back on a new Indonesian policy that is to take effect on Friday next week that requires employers to pay the preparatory costs of hiring migrant workers from Indonesia, including their passport and visa processing fees and airfares.
The Ministry of Labor has made it clear that it would not accept the terms of the policy, which it said had been unilaterally decided by Jakarta.
The videoconference is due to begin at 10am.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS