WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has pledged to strengthen the WHO’s ties with Taiwan as Japan takes a more important role in the global entity, Japanese Minister of Finance Satsuki Katayama said in a social media post on Saturday last week.
Katayama made the remarks after she met with Ghebreyesus in Japan.
US President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the WHO and suspended its investment in the organization.
Photo: Reuters
The WHO last month announced that 2,400 employees, or about 25 percent of the organization, would be laid off by the end of June next year.
Ghebreyesus visited Japan to enhance the WHO’s strategic cooperation with Japan — its second-
largest investor following the US — on universal health coverage while Japan, the WHO and World Bank jointly held the universal healthcare high-level forum on Saturday last week and unveiled their set-up of the Universal Health Coverage Knowledge Hub in Tokyo.
The hub marks the first collaboration between the WHO and the bank in the field, and would make Japan an international hub of developing public health human resources, Katayama said in her post.
She quoted Ghebreyesus as saying that he would strengthen ties with Taiwan.
Representative to Japan Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) yesterday congratulated Japan for setting up the hub and thanked Katayama for bringing up Taiwan.
Taiwan’s globally praised national health insurance system can enlighten other countries, he said, adding Taiwan could contribute more to the international community if it participates in WHO.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS