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.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
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