The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday urged the public to avoid nonessential travel to parts of the Middle East amid escalating tensions, adding that Iran remains under its highest-level “red” travel alert.
Taiwan has also issued an “red” alert for Israel, and a “red” alert for areas along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Travel advisories would be adjusted in line with the latest developments, the ministry said.
Photo: Reuters
Reuters reported that unrest has intensified in Iran following a crackdown on civil protests and military action over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
The ministry said in a statement that four Taiwanese are in Iran and are safe, citing information from the Taiwan Trade Center in Tehran and the Taipei Commercial Office in Dubai.
About 260 Taiwanese are in Israel, it said.
The ministry said it has instructed its overseas offices to maintain contact with Taiwanese in affected areas and to remind them to remain vigilant.
Given geopolitical uncertainty in the region, the ministry urged the public to carefully assess the necessity of travel to high-risk destinations.
Taiwanese in Israel can contact the Taipei Representative Office in Tel Aviv via its emergency hotline at +972-544-275-204. Those in Iran can call the Taipei Commercial Office in Dubai at +971-506-453-018 or the ministry’s 24-hour toll-free hotline in Taipei at 0800-085-095.
Under the ministry’s four-tier travel alert system, advisories are classified as “gray,” “yellow,” “orange” and “red,” in ascending order of risk.
In a Facebook post yesterday evening, President William Lai (賴清德) said his national security team had briefed him on the latest developments as tensions grow across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran that day.
The government has activated relevant response mechanisms to ensure the safety of Taiwanese nationals in the region, and is maintaining close communication with like-minded countries and global partners, he said.
The government will assess the potential impact across various sectors — particularly fluctuations in international commodity and energy prices — evaluate the effects on Taiwan's economy, financial stability and people's livelihoods, and respond with prudence, he added.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS