■ Travel
MOFA to relax restrictions
The government decided to relax entry restrictions on visitors from SARS-affected areas starting from tomorrow, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced. Visitors from areas with reported local transmission of SARS intending to visit for business, funerals, medical treatment or other emergencies will be allowed to enter the country as long as they present medical indicating that they are SARS free certificates when applying for visas, the ministry said. But the government will continue to issue tourism visas to visitors from these areas, the ministry said. The ministry made the announcement following a decision by the Cabinet-level SARS Prevention and Relief Committee. The government suspended the issuing of visas to visitors from SARS-affected areas on April 28.
■ Travel
CKS numbers rising
CKS International Airport recorded a total of 7,109 arrivals and departures on Friday, up 322 from Thursday's figures, according to statistics released yesterday by airport authorities. Friday's figures -- 3,160 arrivals and 3,949 departures -- represents an increase of 1,434 from a historical low of 5,675 posted last Monday. There were a total of 169 airplane landings and takeoffs on Friday at CKS, with an average of 42 passengers on board each flight.
■ Travel
Medical staff face measures
The Immigration Bureau under the Ministry of the Interior announced yesterday the implementation of a requirement effective immediately that medical personnel wanting to go abroad must first provide a fit-to-travel certificate. The certificate, which must be issued by the traveler's own medical institution, has to certify that the traveler has not been in close contact with any SARS patients within the last 10 days. The implementation of the requirement was prompted by the case of a Mackay Memorial Hospital doctor who traveled to Japan earlier this month and then tested positive for SARS after returning to Taiwan.
■ Czech Republic
Prague tightens restrictions
Czech authorities have adopted stricter controls to prevent the spread of SARS, among them introducing the compulsory quarantine of travelers arriving from Taiwan, according to press reports yesterday. The Dnes newspaper quoted the head of Prague's health services as saying that two Czech students had been placed in quarantine on Friday for around 10 days after returning from Taipei, despite showing no symptoms of the disease. Prague health chief Vladimir Polanecky told the newspaper that all passengers arriving from areas identified by the World Health Organization as SARS-affected would be subject to quarantine.
■ Health
Yu pays respects to doctor
Premier Yu Shyi-kun went to the mortuary of a Kaohsiung military hospital yesterday where the body of a doctor who died from SARS was being held. Yu paid his respects to the late Lin Yung-hsiang (林永祥), a young doctor at Chang Gung who fell ill after caring for a SARS patient. Yu expressed his condolences to Lin's mother and presented her with a check for NT$10 million (US$288,184) as compensation from the government. The premier later inspected the construction site of a temporary fever-detection clinic in Kaohsiung.
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