A Taiwanese employee at the Taipei Representative Office in France has tested positive for COVID-19, the first case among the nation’s overseas diplomatic employees, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The employee is in home isolation, while another worker in the office has been placed in home quarantine, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said at a news conference in Taipei, without revealing the workers’ identities.
The employee, after showing symptoms, was tested on Thursday last week and the results confirmed to be positive on Monday, Ou said, adding that the effects on the office are limited as employees have worked from home since the middle of March.
The worker had not been in direct contact with Representative to France Francois Wu (吳志中), who remains healthy, nor with visitors to the office, she added.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
TRAVEL CONVENIENCE: The program is to shorten wait times while passing through airport checks and would start for Taiwanese from January next year Japan is to launch a new program to expedite entry procedures for Taiwanese starting from January next year. The Japanese government is planning to introduce new rules to shorten the time it takes foreign travelers to pass through immigration, thereby attracting more tourists to visit, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday. An airport preclearance program would be implemented to allow foreign travelers to finish some screenings at their departure airport’s terminals and undergo simple confirmation procedures upon arrival, it said. The program would initially be applied to travelers from Taiwan from January next year and could be extended to travelers from elsewhere depending
ENGLISH-MANDARIN: A lawmaker said that he believed the change was made to follow common practice while operating in international airspace The air force this month started issuing Chinese-English bilingual radio warnings to expel Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft that fly into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a senior military official said on July 9. Air Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Wang Te-yang (王德揚) said the decision was made after considering three factors: enemy threat, the global situation and aviation safety. Previously the air force only used Mandarin when intercepting PLA aircraft that fly into the ADIZ because both sides use it as their official language. An ADIZ is a self-declared area in which a country claims the right to identify,