■ Travel
Alcohol costs pilot his flight
The captain of a China Airlines passenger jet was barred from an Anchorage, Alaska-to-New York flight after a breath test showed his blood-alcohol level was twice the limit for pilots, officials said. An airport screener smelled alcohol and found an open container of alcohol on the pilot. He was stopped before boarding an Airbus 340 jet last Thurs-day, said John Madden, a Transportation Safety Administration official, on Monday. A test administered by airport police showed a blood-alcohol level of .087 percent, a spokeswoman for the airport said. The US Federal Aviation Admin-istration (FAA) limit for pilots is .04 percent. China Airlines suspended the pilot, whose name has not been made public, and the rest of the crew flew the plane out of Anchorage, the FAA said.
■ Pets
Cat walks 50km home
It took six days for a cat to travel more than 50km to return to the woman who had raised it, after being given away, a local cable TV station reported yesterday. The five-year-old feline, named Xiao Fu (Little Tiger) was given away last month by its owner in Hsinchu, identified only as Mrs. Chang, to her daughter, who lives in Taoyuan. "My husband heard some strange sounds outside the house and went out to check -- only to see that Xiao Fu was back," Chang said. She said Xiao Fu looked thirsty and weary, adding she had no idea how the cat could have found his way back to Hsinchu safely. "The most important thing is we have him again," Chang said.
■ Politics
Lien to visit Europe, the US
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) will visit the US after a European tour this month, party sources said on Mon-day. According to KMT Vice Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), who is currently in New York, Lien will make a lecture tour of Britain and the Czech Republic before arriving in the US on Oct. 18 as part of his efforts to canvass support for his presidential bid. Lien will visit Harvard University and then go to Washing-ton to deliver a speech at the invitation of the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the National Press Club. Wu said Lien will fly to
New York on Oct. 22 to meet with Chinese community leaders before leaving for home. Wu said the trip is expected to be Lien's last overseas tour before the election next March.
■ National Defense
Salvage team seeks IDF
The Ministry of National Defense sent three ships yesterday to salvage an indigenous defense fighter (IDF) which crashed off Penghu on Saturday, a ministry spokesman said. Major General Huang Suey-sheng (黃穗生) said the ships will try to salvage the wreck-age as quickly as possible. About 20 minutes after the IDF took off from Tainan Air Base on a training flight it experienced mechanical failure and the two pilots ejected. They were later rescued unharmed.
■ Recreation
Seniors invited for mahjong
Elderly residents of Taipei will be able to celebrate Senior Citizens' Day this Saturday by playing mah-jong in a competition sponsored by the Taipei City Government. The Bureau of Social Affairs said that 50 tables will be set up in the courtyard of City Hall. Residents over 60 years of age are eligible to compete, officials said. Prizes will be given to individuals and groups.
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