The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year.
The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions.
In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol.
Photo: Yang Cheng-yu, Taipei Times
In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its engagement in addressing global issues.
Exclusion from international bodies “hinders the development of [Taiwan’s] contribution to the world community and affects the interests of the Taiwanese people,” it says, calling Taiwan’s past cooperation, especially in regards to health, “beneficial to the world community and Taiwan.”
The attendance of Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavsky and Czech Deputy Minister of Health Radek Policar at the vote “fully demonstrates the importance and firm friendship the Czech government attaches to Taiwan,” MOFA said.
It was the second year in a row that the upper chamber passed such a resolution ahead of the WHO’s annual World Health Assembly (WHA), which this year is to be held from May 22 to 28.
Czech officials and lawmakers have over the past few years increasingly spoken out in support of Taiwan.
Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil, who started the trend on his visit to Taiwan in 2020 despite strong protest from Beijing, on Sept. 1 of that year declared in Chinese before the Legislative Yuan: “I am Taiwanese.”
In July last year, the Czech government donated 30,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, and in October welcomed Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) as a special guest to the European nation, where he received a medal from Vystrcil.
When the Czech government in January announced its administrative plan for the next four years, it included provisions to bolster its partnership with Taiwan, which it called an important democratic partner.
In other news, US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell on Wednesday said that cross-strait affairs would be on the agenda during the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit taking place yesterday and today in Washington.
The US would take action to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Campbell said, adding that it is “not seeking to take provocative actions,” but rather affirm that all parties would deter provocations.
MOFA spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) during a regular news conference yesterday thanked the administration of US President Joe Biden for consistently expressing its “rock-solid” support for Taiwan.
Taiwan has never changed its determination to defend its freedom, democracy and security, Ou said, vowing to continue improving the nation’s defense capabilities and cooperating with like-minded nations to maintain regional peace.
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
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
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