■ Crime
Mother asks Ma for help
The mother of Fryderyk Frontier, a US citizen who went missing in Taiwan in late May, called on Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday help in the search for her son. Barbara Klita, who sold her house to pay for airplane tickets, has made several trips to Taiwan since June. This time she appealed to the mayor for help. Ma told Klita that his heart goes out to her for her missing son, who arrived in Taiwan in May to take up an English-teaching job in Taipei. Ma promised Klita to do what he could to find Frontier. Ma then picked up the phone and called Hualien government officials. The eastern Taiwan county was where Frontier was reportedly last seen. Deputy Hualien County Chief Chu Ching-peng (朱景鵬) promised Ma that he will see to it that county police step up efforts in the search for Frontier and that Chu himself will meet with Klita shortly to gain a better understanding of the incident. Over the past several months, Klita has walked busy streets and railway and MRT stations in Taipei City, wearing a sandwich-board showing Frontier's name and photograph and asking pedestrians in broken Chinese "Have you seen him?"
■ Legal Battle
Deadline for Iruan's return
The Kaohsiung District Court in southern Taiwan has set a deadline for the return of a Taiwanese-Brazilian boy to his legal guardian in Brazil, judicial sources said yesterday. The court served notice to the Taiwanese family of Iruan Ergui Wu (吳憶樺) on Dec. 25 demanding it hand over the 8-year-old boy to his grandmother's representative in Taiwan within 20 days. Iruan's Brazilian grand-mother, Rosa Leocadia Silva Ergui, has authorized Paulo Pinto, Brazil's de facto ambassador to Taiwan, to take the boy back to Brazil on her behalf. Iruan's Taiwanese family said they will file an application with the court today to secure more time to prepare for Iruan's return to Brazil.
■ Mad Cow Disease
Taiwan bans US meat
The Council of Agriculture said yesterday Taiwan would join other countries in banning the import of US beef and related products. The council said the import of the meat of cattle, sheep and goats, whether fresh, frozen or otherwise, from the US is prohibited. Taiwan temporarily suspended US beef imports last week, hours after US agricultural authorities said a cow had tested positive for the disease in the northwestern state of Washington. The discovery of mad cow disease in the US has prompted some Taiwanese to give up eating beef, and has forced some restaurants and supermarkets to remove US beef from their menu or shelves.
■ Charity
Relief group arrives in Iran
A 19-member group from the Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassionate Relief Foundation (慈濟功德會), Taiwan's largest charity organization, arrived in Tehran at around 2am yesterday to help with relief work for Iranian earthquake victims. The members of the Tzu Chi relief group brought the foundation's first batch of supplies, including 100 medical supply kits, 11,000 blankets, as well as food supplies and bottled water, to those injured or made homeless by the earthquake. Meanwhile, a 60-member Taiwanese rescue team left for Iran Saturday evening to join search and rescue operations in the ancient Iranian city of Bam. A relief group from World Vision Taiwan is scheduled to arrive in Tehran this morning, bringing its first batch of relief supplies. The supplies are worth about US$25,000.
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