The secretary-general of the World Medical Association (WMA), a confederation of more than 100 national medical associations, yesterday called on the WHO to end its continued exclusion of Taiwan.
During a keynote speech at this year’s NGO Leaders Forum in Taipei, WMA secretary-general Otmar Kloiber said his non-governmental organization (NGO) had long supported Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and participation in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting.
Due to its advocacy on Taiwan’s behalf, the WHO has threatened to revoke the WMA’s membership in the multilateral body, Kloiber said, adding that WMA observers with Taiwanese passports had been routinely denied entry to UN premises since 2017.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
He said such “ridiculous” actions hurt not just the WMA, but also the WHO itself by forgoing the benefits of power, experience and humanitarian help from Taiwan.
“We see ourselves as advocates for healthcare everywhere, and the meaningful participation of knowledge is something which we believe is absolutely necessary to have complete inclusion,” Kloiber said. “And we hope that we can make a difference and get a reconsideration by the World Health Organization to have finally Taiwan included and participating in a very meaningful way.”
Taiwanese representatives were expelled from the WHO in 1972, one year after the People’s Republic of China was recognized as the sole representative of China by the UN.
During the administration of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from 2009 to 2016, Taiwanese delegates, participating under the name Chinese Taipei, were granted observer status at the WHA.
Since then Taiwan has been excluded from the WHA due to opposition from China.
The NGO Leaders Forum was opened with remarks from Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yui, who said that it was the third consecutive year that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had hosted an international forum to facilitate dialogue between the government and NGOs from Taiwan and abroad.
More than 600 participants from NGOs, government officials, business representatives and other guests had already taken part in this “meaningful event,” Yui said.
This year’s forum focused on the challenges and opportunities for a Taiwanese public-private partnership promoting peace and justice in global governance.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS