The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday that Denmark has become the ninth European country to recognize Taiwanese driver’s licenses.
Anne Hung (洪慧珠), director-general of the Department of European Affairs, made the announcement at a regular press briefing. The regulation took effect on July 1.
“Denmark, which terminated earlier privileges for ROC [Republic of China] citizens in 2007 because of EU regulations, decided recently to reinstate the treatment. This is a result of the efforts of our representative office in Denmark,” Hung said.
Hung said nine European countries have reciprocal recognition of Taiwanese driver’s licenses — Denmark, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary and Finland.
Meanwhile, Hung called on the public to pay special attention to personal safety while traveling abroad, saying that a Taiwanese national was in a coma after a rafting accident on July 17 in Bern, Switzerland.
Declining to give more details about the person, Hung said that after being notified by Swiss police, the ministry’s representative office in Geneva informed the victim’s family and helped them obtain Swiss visas to fly immediately to Switzerland.
In related news, a Europe-Taiwan youth summer program sponsored by the ministry is scheduled to open next week to promote interaction between young people.
Hung said the program had been flooded with applications from young Europeans.
“MOFA hopes that through this activity, young people in Europe will haver an occasion to learn more about Taiwan, while it will help us create more connections in Europe,” Hung said.
She said the exchange program consisted of workshops from next Tuesday to Aug. 10 and from Aug. 18 through Aug. 31, with each attended by more than 70 people from Europe and Africa.
The group will participate in a variety of activities with Taiwanese youth and will visit government agencies, cultural sites and other tourist destinations, Hung said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
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