The government has so far brought back 246 Taiwanese who had been lured to Cambodia by fraud rings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
However, there are still 393 Taiwanese stranded in the Southeast Asian country, Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs deputy head Fan Hou-lu (范厚祿) told a news conference, citing last week’s figures.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau in a statement on Saturday said that 60 of the 393 Taiwanese had been freed from their jobs and were awaiting assistance to return home.
Photo: Reuters
The numbers were provided by Taiwan’s representative office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which handles Cambodian affairs in the absence of a representative office there, Fan said yesterday.
The office has over the past few week received fewer requests for help from Taiwanese in Cambodia, he said.
From Aug. 26 to Sept. 8, the office received 133 such requests, but from Sept. 8 to Friday, the number dropped to 51, Fan said.
The government on Aug. 8 appointed a task force to help Taiwanese falling prey to job scams in Cambodia and to bring home those stranded there.
The task force has also been working to raise public awareness of the risks related to work and travel in Cambodia, the Executive Yuan has said.
As part of those efforts, airport police have been warning travelers to Cambodia about the reported job scams there.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “[we] appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe