A new page in the friendship between Taiwan, the US and Japan has begun with a visit by US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan on Wednesday, Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has said.
“Ambassador Emanuel is the first US ambassador to Japan to visit our office in the past few years, and he opened a new page for the Taiwan-US-Japan friendship,” Hsieh wrote on Facebook.
“Taiwan, as a member of international democratic society, will continue to work closely with like-minded countries such as the US and Japan,” he added.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
Emanuel and Hsieh later at Hsieh’s official residence dined together and exchanged opinions on issues of importance to Taiwan and the US, including support for Lithuania and Ukraine, Hsieh said.
Beijing has imposed punitive economic measures against Lithuania for establishing the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania.
It is Taiwan’s first such office in Europe to use “Taiwanese” in its name instead of “Taipei,” as it does in other countries.
The Taipei office welcomed Emanuel with cocktails that were the colors of the Lithuanian and Ukrainian national flags.
The drinks were made from Taiwanese pineapples and Lithuanian lime liqueur, Hsieh said.
Taiwan would support Lithuania and Ukraine as they fight against oppression and authoritarianism, and help safeguard order and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, he added.
Emanuel’s visit to the office came ahead of US President Joe Biden’s six-day trip to Asia.
Arriving in Seoul today, Biden is to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida next week; participate in a summit with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia; and launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, an initiative the US proposed last year to enhance its economic engagement in the region.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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