■ Cross-Strait Ties
China issues white paper
China's Taiwan Affairs Office announced yesterday it would agree to revoke the "one China" precondition for talks on direct links if Tai-wan would allow non-governmental bodies to act as negotiators. Unveiling a white paper on direct links, He Shizhong (何世忠), direc-tor of the office's economic bureau, stressed that nego-tiations on direct links are not of a "political nature."
He also said that air routes between Taiwan and China could not be defined as international routes. The office said Taiwan had destroyed the foundation for the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and the Straits Exchange Foun-dation to talk by rejecting the "one China" principle.
Pu Zhaozhou (浦照洲), director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Office under the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said Taiwan's plan to operate chartered cross-strait flights during the next Lunar New Year holiday may be aborted if Taipei refuses to allow non-governmental bodies to negotiate with China.
■ Health
Doctor indicted for accident
A female gynecologist was indicted yesterday for accidentally damaging a patient's hymen. According to the indictment filed by Taipei Prosecutor Chen Yi-dun (陳以敦), Dr. Huang Wen-chen (黃文貞), of Cathay General Hospital, damaged 33-year-old Hung Wen-wen's (洪文文) hymen with a speculator on Oct. 12 last year. According to the indictment, Huang had not explained to Hung that there was a chance the hymen would be damaged during the examination, but the doctor wrote in the patient's file that Hung was fully aware of and had agreed to all of Huang's actions. Huang was indicted on the charges of negligence for causing bodily harm and forging documents. If convicted, the doctor could face a 13-month jail sentence.
■ Animal rights
Strict enforcement urged
Legislators and animal-rights activists yesterday urged the government to strictly enforce the Animal Protection Law (動物保護法) in order to not only solve problems with stray animals but to also respect the value of life. On Tuesday, the Legislative Yuan revised the law, prohibiting trading in dog meat and slaughtering pets for a variety of purposes, including eating and the use of furs. Violators will be fined between NT$50,000 and NT$250,000 -- a sharp hike from the old law, which only called for fines ranging from NT$ 2,000 to NT$10,000. At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan yesterday, Shen Jung-chen (沈蓉震), founder of the Care for Animals and Protect the Earth Organization, com-plained that local authorities have failed to take action
on her complaints about restaurants selling dog meat in Taipei, Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties. "If the government has no intention of enforcing the law strictly, the time spent revising the law will have been in vain," Shen said. Meanwhile, independent Legislator Su Yin-kuei (蘇盈貴) said the government needed to clarify statistics about stray dogs and improve methods used to capture such animals.
■ Kaohsiung
Mayor visits Bangkok
Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) is on a four-day visit in Thailand, Tai-wanese community sources in Bangkok said yesterday. Hsieh and his wife arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday night, the sources said. They said Hsieh will meet with Tai-wanese community leaders during his visit in addition to visiting major tourist sites.
staff writer, with agencies";
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift