UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres flew to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula yesterday in a push to get aid flowing into the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza, but it was unclear when delivery of relief materials stockpiled in Egypt would start.
In Geneva, Switzerland, the UN humanitarian office said it was in advanced talks with all parties in the Israel-Hamas conflict to ensure an aid operation can soon be conducted in Gaza.
The US said details of a deal to send aid through the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza were still being hammered out.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Earlier, Washington said agreement had been reached for the passage of the first 20 trucks, but UN officials said that any delivery of aid needs to be done at scale and in a sustained way.
Before the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people depend on humanitarian aid.
“We are in deep and advanced negotiations with all relevant sides to ensure that an aid operation into Gaza starts as quickly as possible and with the right conditions,” UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters.
In related news, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday said a chartered plane has been arranged to evacuate Taiwanese from Israel, which was to depart from Tel Aviv at about 5:40pm yesterday Taipei time, making a stopover at Fiumicino International Airport in Rome, and was expected to arrive in Rome at about 8:25pm yesterday Taipei time.
Wu said as of yesterday afternoon there were 16 people that were to take the chartered flight, including nine Taiwanese, and that five of them are a family, three are backpackers, and one is a student; while the other seven people are from diplomatic allies — six from Guatemala and one from Paraguay.
As of yesterday morning, there were still 137 Taiwanese in Israel who were not willing to take the evacuation flight, Wu said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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