The government has so far brought back 246 Taiwanese who had been lured to Cambodia by fraud rings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
However, there are still 393 Taiwanese stranded in the Southeast Asian country, Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs deputy head Fan Hou-lu (范厚祿) told a news conference, citing last week’s figures.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau in a statement on Saturday said that 60 of the 393 Taiwanese had been freed from their jobs and were awaiting assistance to return home.
Photo: Reuters
The numbers were provided by Taiwan’s representative office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which handles Cambodian affairs in the absence of a representative office there, Fan said yesterday.
The office has over the past few week received fewer requests for help from Taiwanese in Cambodia, he said.
From Aug. 26 to Sept. 8, the office received 133 such requests, but from Sept. 8 to Friday, the number dropped to 51, Fan said.
The government on Aug. 8 appointed a task force to help Taiwanese falling prey to job scams in Cambodia and to bring home those stranded there.
The task force has also been working to raise public awareness of the risks related to work and travel in Cambodia, the Executive Yuan has said.
As part of those efforts, airport police have been warning travelers to Cambodia about the reported job scams there.
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from