Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Chang Tzi-chin (張子敬) arrived in Palau on Tuesday to attend a conference on marine ecology and meet with the president of the Pacific island country.
Leading a delegation of officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Coast Guard Administration and the Ocean Affairs Council, Chang was welcomed by Palauan Minister of State Gustav Aitaro at the airport, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The delegation was later received by Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr at the presidential office.
Photo courtesy of the Embassy of the Republic of China in Palau
Whipps said that Palau and Taiwan have been doing their best to promote marine conservation and sustainable development, thanking Taiwan for helping his country host the two-day Our Oceans Conference today and tomorrow.
The annual event, which has been held since 2014, but was not convened in 2020 and last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is aimed at taking concrete and significant actions to protect the ocean.
Aside from meeting with Palauan officials and attending a reception banquet organized by conference cohosts Palau and the US, Chang also opened a Taiwan-organized exhibition in Palau on Tuesday, the statement said.
The exhibition, titled “Toward a Zero Emission and Zero Waste Future,” showcases Taiwan’s efforts in marine conservation, marine security and marine garbage recycling for those attending the conference, which has drawn delegations from about 80 countries.
Chang was to deliver a speech on the opening day focused on Taiwan’s efforts in dealing with marine pollution, the ministry said.
It would be the first time Taiwan has attended the conference in an official capacity, the statement said.
Taiwan’s official participation at past events, held in Norway, Indonesia, Chile, Malta and the US, has been routinely opposed by China, forcing Taiwan’s EPA ministers to participate in a personal capacity.
This year, Taiwan has benefited from host Palau being one of its diplomatic allies and China not attending.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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