■ Weather
Cold warning issued
The Central Weather Bureau issued a "special warning" yesterday, saying that due to the arrival of a strong cold front, the temperatures could drop to 7?C tomorrow and Thursday morning. People should be prepared for the cold weather, especially those people living in areas north of Tainan, the bureau said.
■ Aid
Taichung helps Iranians
The Taichung County Government and World Vision Taiwan jointly sponsored a "send love to Iran" campaign, donating NT$360,000 and various relief materials at a cere-mony yesterday. Taichung County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生) presented the money, 14 tents, clothes and more than 100 sleeping bags to the charity, which will send the relief supplies to Iran. Huang said that when Tai-chung County was struck by the massive 921earthquake, the inter-national community was generous with its assistance and that the county has always wanted to recipro-cate. He said he hoped that the city of Bam, which was leveled in the massive Dec. 26 quake, could get back on its feet.
■ Flowers
COA chief visits market
With the Lunar New Year holiday just around the corner, Council of Agricul-ture Chairman Lee Chin-lung (李金龍) toured Taipei's flower auction market yesterday to look into the floral supply and demand situation. Senior executives of the Taipei Flower Mar-keting Co briefed Lee on floral supplies and price levels. According to the executives, the cut-flower supply has increased 20 percent from last year's levels, while prices vary in terms of species. Generally speaking, cut-flower prices, including lilies, orchids and chrysanthemums, are up 5 percent to 10 percent. As chrysanthemum exports to Japan have risen in recent months, retail prices have surged by more than 5 percent. As for potted flowers, the supply has increased by about 10 percent, but prices have declined about 4 percent.
■ Politics
Su returns from US
Taipei County Commissioner Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who twent to the US to stump for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election over the weekend, collected nearly US$600,000 during a fund-raising dinner on Sunday. Addressing the nearly 1,000 guests at the dinner party, Su said that he was confi-dent Chen will win his re-election bid. Regarding polls showing Chen lagging behind his challenger, Su said the poll conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2000 showed that Chen would lose by a slim margin, but in the end he won. Su also stressed the importance of soliciting the voters who are neither core supporters of the ruling or the opposi-tion parties.
■ Farming
No sign of BEF in cattle
No signs of bovine ephem-eral fever (BEF) have been discovered in dairy farms in Tainan County, the largest dairy region in in the country, a local government source said yesterday. None of the approximately 22,000 cattle being raised on the 133 dairy farms in the county have been found to have contracted BEF, according to a specialist with the Tainan County Institute for Animal Health. Over the past year, the institute has conducted BEF-monitoring operations each month, examining 200 head of cows and calves. The last time that BEF was discovered in this country was in September 2001.
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