■ Diplomacy
Salvadoran group arrives
The vice president of El Salvador's National Assembly, Jose Manuel Melgar, is to arrive in Taipei today for a five-day visit. Heading a 19-member parliamentarian delegation, Melgar will call on Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the office of Taiwan's International Cooperation and Development Fund, and the Central American Trade Office. The Salvadoran delegation is also scheduled to visit several economic and cultural establishments in Taiwan, including an agricultural research center in Taoyuan run by the Council of Agriculture, a vocational training center operated by the Taipei City Government, as well as the Taipei World Trade Center and the National Palace Museum.
■ Education
University leaders meet
The 2003 Southeast Asian University Presidents' Conference opened yesterday in Taipei. Over 100 university presidents from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Khmer, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Taiwan participate in the two-day meeting. The theme of the meeting is "globalized cooperation" in higher education. The participants have signed a joint statement, saying that they hope to have more opportunities to exchange professors and students, jointly sponsor international conferences, jointly carry out research programs, and exchange educational information and publications.. Kao Chiang(高強), president of the National Cheng Kung University which hosts the conference, said the two-day meeting is aimed at promoting the cooperation among Southeast Asian universities.
■ Trade
Protect IPR, Paal says
The de facto US ambassador to Taiwan said yesterday that Taiwan must further strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in order to attract more foreign investors and boost the development of knowledge-based economy. Douglas Paal, director of the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan, made the remarks at an Asia-Pacific conference of the World Trade Law Association. Paal said effective IPR protection is critical to Taiwan's drive to develop a knowledge-based economy. Noting that direct foreign investments in Taiwan have declined significantly in the past two years, Paal said, Taiwan must cultivate a more "IPR-friendly" environment to enhance its appeal to foreign investors. Paal said the package of amendments to Taiwan's copyrights law, which was passed in June this year, were a compromise under pressure from some lawmakers. Paal said Taiwan must further amend its copyright law again to plug holes in its IPR protection mechanism.
■ Politics
Hsieh to attend forum
Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) will head a delegation to attend an annual Liberal International conference to be held in the West African state of Senegal next week, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday. Liberal International is a London-based organization that groups more than 80 liberal democratic parties in 63 countries around the world. The DPP formally joined the alliance last year. Hsieh, a member of the DPP's decision-making Central Standing Committee, will attend the meeting on behalf of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Several DPP politicians and Kaohsiung City Government officials, will accompany Hsieh.
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