■ Health
Ma meets Ontario officials
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called on health officials and visited a community hospital in Toronto, Canada, on Monday, where a SARS cluster transmission was reported earlier this year. Ma met with Phil Hassen, Ontario's deputy minister of health and long-term care, and other health officials over breakfast, and exchanged views on the battle against SARS. Ma broached the idea of Toronto and Taipei joining hands to inform each other on the latest SARS information. His proposal was positively received by the Canadian officials. Ma said the important things to think about are how to respond quickly if SARS resurfaces, whether it is necessary to impose large-scale quarantine measures and whether communication between the various levels of governments can be improved.
■ Crime
Chinese migrants nabbed
Twenty-three Chinese women suspected of attempting to illegally enter Taiwan were discovered hiding onboard a Taiwanese fishing vessel and arrested off Keelung by coast guard forces early yesterday morning. The coast guard reported that they had been tipped off that a smuggling ring was trying to use fishing vessels to transport illegal immigrants. The coast guard sent three cutters to patrol the northern sea area. The coast guard officers spotted the suspicious fishing vessel, the Taipei County-registered Tayi No. 168, off Pitou, Keelung, and boarded it at 2am. They discovered the women hiding in a secret compartment. They then escorted the ship back to Shenao Harbor and questioned its captain, Han Chung-hua (韓忠華), as well as a Vietnamese fisherman and the 23 women.
■ Culture
Residents want museum
The plan to build a Guggenheim museum in Taichung has received warm response from local citizens, a spokesman for a project promotional alliance said yesterday. The Guggenheim Museum Promotion Alliance, composed of major Taichung-based cultural organizations, launched a signature campaign in support of the ambitious plan late last month. The campaign, which ended Monday, attracted support from 16,900 Taichung residents, a spokesman said. "We'll send the signatures, news clippings featuring the promotional campaign and recommendations for the project to the city government and council, and the Guggenheim Foundation to express our support for the new museum project," the spokesman said. The project will cost about NT$6.4 billion and the central government has promised to foot half the bill.
■ Labor
Safety program launched
The Council of Labor Affairs, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Taiwan High-Speed Railway Corp (THSRC) yesterday signed an agreement that established each party as a member of the Safety Partnership Program yesterday. The contract is aimed at attaining better health and safety policies and their enforcement in the construction of the high-speed railway, and stipulates cooperation between the council and the THSRC in the oversight of the company's safety policies. Council Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊) explained that while a 30 percent reduction in work-related accidents and deaths had been attained, the ultimate goal of a 40 percent reduction had yet to be reached. THSRC chairwoman Nita Ing (殷琪) said "nothing was more important than safety" and that it was a "necessary goal."
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