■ March election
Parties fight over ads
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) accused each other yesterday of exercising political influence in domestic news media in their election advertisements. The DPP-friendly Formosa TV (FTV) rejected a contracted advertisement for a KMT election campaign commercial, while the KMT-owned Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC,中廣) reportedly turned down an advertising offer from the DPP. The KMT yesterday accused the Presidential Office of masterminding FTV's rejection of the campaign ad, claiming FTV suddenly changed the ad schedule due to political influence. The DPP yesterday dismissed the allegations, saying the party was not capable of influencing the media for political reasons and that the accusation was groundless. Meanwhile, the DPP said yesterday that the BCC was in breach of contract.
■ Lunar New year
Pingtung to hold festival
To welcome the Year of the Monkey, Pingtung, called Monkey City in ancient times, will launch the Kenting Windbell Festival on Jan. 3. The Hengchun Wuliting Airport will open on Jan. 10 and five gifts await the first 3,000 passengers who fly from the airport. The Kenting Windbell Festival will be held for its third year in a bid to boost the windbell industry. From Jan. 3 to Feb. 8 on the 3,000-ping Shia Ti Yi Beach, the festival will feature various performances and exhibitions. Thirteen windbell theme areas await visitors and a discount of 30 percent to 50 percent for five-star hotel accommodations with five tour packages have been offered to passengers flying directly from Taipei to Wuliting Airport. In addition, restaurant coupons offering more than a 40 percent discount and shuttle bus service from Wuliting Airport to Kenting will be offered to visitors.
■ Pets
Residents bark over dog ban
The Pingtung City government's policy forbidding citizens from walking their dogs in parks has triggered controversy on the Internet. The government has long had signs outside the city's parks requesting residents not to walk their dogs in the park. With many citizens ignoring the regulation, the city government decided to publish photos of those breaking the rules in a city government monthly publication, the report said. Though some residents argued on the Internet that dogs should be entitled to enter the parks and the threat to publish citizens' photos was a violation of human rights, Pingtung Mayor Wang Chin-hsih (王進士) was quoted as saying that many citizens walked their pets in the park only for them to defecate. Wang said the city government has no choice but to publish the photos because people keep ignoring the regulations. Although city officials have failed to take any pictures of the rule breakers, policy supporters have offered many photos of dog walkers.
■ Public transit
TRTC prints brochure
The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC, 台北捷運公司) released a brochure on MRT information yesterday in nine different languages, hoping to provide a more friendly environment for international visitors and foreign workers. The TRTC said the brochure -- in Thai, Malaysian, German, French, Spanish, English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese -- includes a map and time schedule for the MRT. The brochure is small enough to fit in a pocket, the company said.
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