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GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization’s annual assembly refused Monday to discuss admitting Taiwan to the meeting, under pressure from China and despite impassioned pleas from several countries. Taiwan has been blocked from attending the assembly in recent years by China, which considers the island a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland. There have been growing calls to allow Taiwan in as an observer, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted […]
A man who padlocked a church and opened fire on its Taiwanese-American congregation, killing one person and injuring five others, was motivated by hatred of the island and its people, US investigators said Monday. David Chou jammed the doors shut using chains and superglue as dozens of parishioners enjoyed a post-service banquet at the church in Laguna Woods, near Los Angeles. The 68-year-old, an American citizen, also hid bags containing Molotov cocktails and spare ammunition […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — China sent 18 warplanes including fighters and bombers into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Friday, the island’s government said, in the second-largest one-day incursion this year. Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by Beijing, which sees the self-ruled democratic island as part of its territory to be retaken one day, by force if necessary. The final quarter of 2021 saw a spike in incursions by China into Taiwan’s […]
Filipino and indonesian crew among those who suffered while working in Taiwan fishing fleet TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwanese prosecutors on Wednesday charged nine people for exploiting and abusing foreign crew, including Filipinos and Indonesians, on a longline fishing boat, a scourge that activists have long warned was going under-reported and unpunished. Prosecutors allege that the crew beat migrant fishermen, forced them to work up to 20 hours a day, and made Muslim employees eat […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan will move away from a zero-Covid policy and instead focus on tackling the most severe infections in an effort to live with the coronavirus, its health minister said Thursday. The decision leaves China — and its financial hub Hong Kong — as the only major economy still sticking to the strategy even as Omicron breaks through those defences. Taiwan has largely closed its borders and implemented strict quarantine rules […]
by Amber WANG TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan early Wednesday, rattling buildings and rousing people from their sleep but with no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes, as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates. Taiwan does not issue tsunami warnings unless a quake registers at more than magnitude 7.0. The US Geological Survey downgraded this […]
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan (AFP) — Hundreds of Taiwanese military reservists carried out training exercises on Monday after the island’s president called for “unity” as the Ukraine war rattles nerves over the threat of invasion from China. Taiwan last year stepped up its training regime for reservists as tensions rise with Beijing, which sees the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day, by force if necessary. About 400 personnel took […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan will not send an official delegation to the opening or closing of the Beijing Winter Olympics due to China’s strict pandemic controls and flight disruptions, the self-ruled island’s governing body for sport said. The decision comes at a time when relations between Beijing and Taipei are at their lowest in decades with China ramping up military and economic pressure under President Xi Jinping. Taiwan’s Sports Administration said late Friday […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — A Taiwanese woman faces the death penalty for allegedly starting the island’s deadliest fire in decades in an attempt to get back at a boyfriend she suspected was cheating on her. October’s inferno in the southern city of Kaohsiung raged through multiple floors of a dilapidated 13-storey apartment block for hours, killing 46 people. Authorities had said the blaze started when a resident, identified by her family name Huang, left […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan said Wednesday its deputy leader will go to the inauguration of Honduran president-elect Xiomara Castro as the island faces the potential loss of yet another diplomatic ally in Latin America. Castro said during campaigning that she would “immediately open diplomatic and commercial relations with mainland China” if she won. Last month, neighbouring Nicaragua switched its allegiance to Beijing, leaving Honduras as one of just 14 countries that still diplomatically recognize […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A Chinese court has sentenced two people to death for attempting to smuggle 400 kilograms of methamphetamine by sea from Southeast Asia to Taiwan, state media reported. Ten other people with the same smuggling ring were handed between 10 years and life in prison over the “extraordinarily large” operation, China News Service said. Chinese and foreign trafficking gangs operating out of China’s southeastern coastal province of Fujian arranged for fishermen to […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Taiwan on Friday said it was investigating whether a mouse bite may have been responsible for a worker at a high-security laboratory testing positive for the coronavirus, the island’s first local infection in weeks. Health officials are scrambling to work out how a female employee at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institute, contracted the virus last month. Thanks to largely closed borders and strict quarantines, Taiwan has managed to stay […]
