■Surveys
Chen loses support
According to a survey in the Chinese-language Commonwealth magazine, 50 percent of Taiwanese people hold a pessimistic attitude about their future. The survey shows 50 percent consider President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration as poor. Only 10 percent regard Chen's administration as good, according to the survey. Only 2.4 percent of people are satisfied with this year's economic performance, whereas 62.3 percent of people are dissatisfied with politics, the study said. The survey shows 34.5 percent of people have one or more unemployed family members. The gap between the rich and the poor has also become wider over the past year. However, the survey reveals the public believes conflicts between ethnic groups are not as serious as before. Only 24 percent of people are still concerned about conflicts between ethnic groups, compared with last year's 37.5 percent.
■ Crime
French kiss yields jail term
A Thai worker has been sentenced to three years in prison for forcing a French kiss on a junior high school girl, a court official said yesterday. Kotiram Nawapol, 25, forced the kiss on a 13-year-old girl on Aug. 16 shortly after meeting her in a park in Hsinkang in central Changhua County, despite the girl's attempt to push him away, the official from the district court said. Nawapol, who had been working in a Taiwanese factory for almost two years, was originally accused by prosecutors of obstructing personal freedom. In his ruling on Wednesday, however, Judge Hung Chih-hsien applied a heavier "molestation" charge. "The defendant forced his tongue into the girl's mouth for three to four seconds, which is generally known as French-kissing and is an act of foreplay seen very often in pornographic films," the verdict stated. "To most people in this country, the act is not only sufficient to arouse or satiate sexual desire, but it will also incite a feeling of disgust and shame [in the victim]," it said. The Thai worker can appeal the case to a higher court.
■ Transportation
Korean charter flight arrives
A Korean Air chartered plane carrying 144 passengers landed at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport yesterday, the first time a Korean passenger plane had arrived since air links with South Korea were suspended after Seoul switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1992. Korean Air began operating the Seoul-Taipei route yesterday, with three round-trip flights per week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The service will end Feb. 21. The last Korean Air plane to arrive here was a relief plane sent after the Sept. 21, 1999 earthquake. Taiwan's TransAsia Airways started running charters on the Taipei-Yangyang route Dec. 22 with four round-trip flights per week. The service will end on Feb. 18.
■ Diplomacy
Colombian official to visit
Enrique Gomez Hurtado, president of the Second Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate of the Republic of Colombia, accompanied by his wife, will arrive in Taipei tomorrow as head of a four-member delegation here for a six-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release yesterday. The delegation is slated to visit Chiang Pin-Kuan (江丙坤), vice speaker of the Legislative Yuan, and attend a dinner hosted by Francisco Hwang (黃瀧元), the vice minister of Foreign Affairs, the statement said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods