Swedish lawmakers have voiced support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and called on other EU members to do the same.
“The WHO needs Taiwan more than Taiwan needs WHO,” Swedish-Taiwanese parliamentarian friendship group head Boriana Aberg told a seminar, the Taipei Mission in Sweden said on Wednesday.
The seminar was held by the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentary Association at the Riksdag to exchange opinions on Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, the Taiwan office said.
Photo: AFP
Nearly 20 Swedish parliamentarians and parliamentary administrative staff from the country’s four major political parties attended, it said.
As Russia and other authoritarian countries are increasingly threatening democracies around the world, EU countries must take a clear stand on supporting Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organizations, Swedish lawmaker Joar Forssell said.
The gesture would demonstrate their emphasis on human rights and their support for like-minded countries, Forssell added.
With a sound health insurance and public health system, Taiwan would bring valuable experiences if it joined the WHO, Karolinska Institutet Department of Global Public Health associate professor Birger Forsberg said.
Taipei has been blocked from participating at WHO events due to Beijing’s oppression, said Henrik Lars Barva, political editor of the Swedish-language Nya Wermlands-Tidningen.
With the Ukraine-Russian war ongoing, democratic countries should step up their efforts to support Taiwan as a demonstration of the free world’s firm support for democracy, Barva added.
Excluding Taiwan from the WHO due to political reasons runs counter to the organization’s constitution, which says that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition,” Taiwanese Representative to Sweden Gu Ruey-sheng (谷瑞生) said.
The nation demonstrated its ability to make substantial contributions to the international health system during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gu said.
Gu thanked the EU and the Swedish government for their long-term support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the WHO.
The association is one of the most active groups in the Riksdag, making 22 statements and proposing 12 motions to support Taiwan last year, the mission said.
Seventeen Swedish lawmakers visited Taiwan last year and the parliament is to send a delegation to Taiwan to attend the presidential inauguration ceremony next month, it added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS