■ Weather
Cold front strikes tonight
A cold front will reach Taiwan tonight, lowering temperatures in coastal and low-lying areas in the northern part of the island to about 10?C, the Central Weather Bureau said. The weather will be cold and dry islandwide, except for possible showers in northern and northeastern Taiwan, until Sunday, when the wave of cold air is expected to leave the area, a bureau meteorologist said.
■ Medicine
SARS patient to be released
Hoping Taipei Municipal Hospital superintendent Chu Ta-cheng (璩大成) yesterday reported that Taiwan's latest SARS patient, Lieutenant Colonel Chan, would be released from the hospital and would probably be going home before the new year. He said that Chan would only leave the hospital after tests confirmed that he was no longer infected with the SARS virus. Department of Health Minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) also said that research conducted at P3 and P4 level laboratories would be temporarily stopped until March 15. "Currently, we cannot revoke licenses to practice because there is no licensing system for these laboratories. By March 15, we will put into place a licensing system, perform thorough inspections of the labs, and test lab personnel on safety procedures," Chen said.
■ Mining
Gravel shipments decrease
A reduction in the amount of gravel extracted from eastern Hualien County could affect major public works construction plans in the northern Taipei and Taoyuan regions, sources reported yesterday. As a result of an environmental impact assessment being conducted in the Hualien area, the number of ships transporting gravel from the eastern county to Taipei Harbor in November dropped to 46 from October's 61, a reduction of 66,000 tonnes of gravel, according to Lin Hsin-chuan, a secretary at Taipei Harbor. According to Lin, gravel shipped from Hualien to Taipei is mainly used for public works construction projects in the Greater Taipei and Taoyuan areas. Statistics compiled by Taipei Harbor show that ships transported gravel from Hualien to Taipei on 499 trips during the first 11 months of this year. However, the volume of gravel shipped from Hualien to Taipei fell by 66,000 tonnes in November alone. The major purpose of Taipei Harbor is to handle gravel shipped from eastern Taiwan to Taipei. Meanwhile, the Taiwan Ready-Mixed Concrete Industry Association has decided to temporarily halt supplies for construction projects being carried out in the Taoyuan area for four days from Jan. 1.
■ Shipping
Kaohsiung slips in rankings
The authorities of southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung Harbor are closely observing the operations of rival harbors, as its former position as the world's third-largest container port has dropped to No. 6. Kaohsiung Harbor was squeezed out by Busan in South Korea and Shanghai and Shenzhen in China, according to statistics from the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau. Hong Kong is still the largest container port in the world, followed by Singapore. In addition to pressure from these harbors, Kaohsiung Harbor has also encountered strong competition from domestic ports such as Keelung, Taichung, Mailiao and Taipei. The government has been planning and trying to develop Taiwan into an "Asia Pacific Operations Center," with Kaohsiung Harbor as its marine transportation center. The harbor has been working to improve service quality and operational efficiency.
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