HEALTH
Boosters available for kids
From Tuesday, children aged six months to five years who have already received two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine would be eligible for a second-generation Moderna jab as a booster, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Friday. However, the updated Moderna bivalent COVID-19 vaccine targeting the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of SARS-CoV-2 cannot be administered as a third shot for children aged six months to four years if their previous two doses were Pfizer-BioNTech jabs, it said. The standard Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination regime for children comprises three shots, while Moderna’s is two, so children must receive Pfizer-BioNTech as their third shot, the CDC said. However, five-year-olds can receive either as their booster, it said. The updated Moderna dose should be administered at least three months after the previous shot, it said, adding that about 134,000 children are eligible for shots.
POLITICS
Cabinet spokesman named
Alan Lin (林子倫), deputy executive director of the Executive Yuan’s Office of Energy and Carbon Reduction, was named Cabinet spokesman on Friday. The Cabinet in a statement described Lin, who teaches political science at National Taiwan University, as a public policy expert, saying that he has been assisting the government in planning its energy and environmental policies. He also led a delegation last year that participated in discussions at the COP27 summit in Egypt, it said. Lin’s predecessor, Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), tendered his resignation in February following allegations that he offered favors for sex during his time as a civil servant in Tainan more than a decade ago. Minister Without Portfolio Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) has been acting Cabinet spokesman since then.
DIPLOMACY
Envoy shares vision
Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said his main objective would be to continue to advance the ties that were cemented by his predecessor, Francis Liang (梁國新). Tung, who arrived in the Southeast Asian city-state on Monday, said that Taiwan and Singapore have a longstanding friendship built on extensive collaboration and exchanges, including several memorandums of understanding and trade agreements. He said he is especially hoping to improve ties in the tourism and the high-tech sectors. Tung previously served as Overseas Community Affairs Council minister.
CULTURE
Exhibition opens in Taipei
French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso’s first solo exhibition in Taiwan opened in Taipei on Wednesday, showcasing several of his pieces in a variety of media. The Paris-based artist said the exhibition, titled “Time Leaves,” reflects his constant exploration of the idea of “time” and “traveling through times.” The exhibition, which runs until July 15 at Tao Art in Neihu District (內湖), brings together several works created by the Marcel Duchamp Prize winner, including the film OttO made for the 2018 Biennale of Sydney. The 21-minute film explores the “sacred sites” of indigenous people in Australia’s Northern Territory, showing Grasso’s interest in traditional beliefs and myths, and his embrace of technology. Also on display is another series of paintings of “strangely shaped” flowers, the gallery said. Titled “Future Herbarium,” the paintings were inspired by flowers that mutated after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in 2011, the gallery said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS