■ Illegal Labor
Chinese woman busted
A Chinese woman married to a Taiwanese man was taken into custody yesterday in downtown Kaohsiung for working illegally, according to law enforcement authorities. The woman was discovered to be working illegally when Kaohsiung police raided a shop allegedly selling bootleg brand-name clothing. Police said they found nearly 2,400 counterfeit pairs of brand-name jeans and other items of clothing. The haul is believed to have a street value of around NT$25 million (US$749,000). The woman, surnamed Tan, 40, is from Hunan province. She was working at the store as a saleswoman. She was taken along with the shop owner to a nearby police station for questioning. Tan did not have a work permit and police said that she will be deported soon.
■ Society
Park officials await word
Taroko National Park officials yesterday said that they hoped National Taiwan Normal University graduate student Kuo Cheng-yan (郭正彥) will let them know as soon as possible whether he is planning to leave the Chilai mountains. While the Ministry of Education has said it basically supports Kuo staying on for his research work as long as his food and equipment are sufficient, Kuo's advisor and university authorities have demanded that he leave the mountains. Park director Huang Wen-ching (黃文卿) said the university requested a military rescue helicopter pick Kuo up. Huang said if Kuo is willing to leave the mountains, officials hope he will explain to the public why he insisted on staying in the mountains after his companions were rescued last week.
■ Health
COA reassures consumers
The Council of Agriculture yesterday assured consumers that cooked poultry meat is safe to eat, and said it will ask countries which have stopped importing poultry from Taiwan to drop their bans. "We want to emphasize that the weaker strain of the bird flu can not be transmitted to humans. And since that virus is sensitive to heat, well-cooked poultry meat is safe for consumption," the council said in a statement. The council said the government will provide loans to poultry farmers and exporters to tide them over the difficult period, and will ask Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brazil to lift the ban on poultry imports from Taiwan. In the past month, more than 60,000 chickens were slaughtered after some chickens died mysteriously. The council insists the chickens died from a combination of Newcastle disease, bronchitis, cold weather and H5N2 -- a weaker strain of H5N1. Ten-thousand ducks on one farm were also killed after test results showed that a batch of ducks sold at a Taipei market last December tested positive for H5N2.
■ Weather
Low temperatures expected
Temperatures will drop tomorrow with a strong cold front approaching from China, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. Temperatures in northern Taiwan are expected to range between 10?C and 15?C. Heavy rain is also predicted for Monday through Thursday. The CWB said that high mountain areas like Hohuan Mountain (合歡山) and Jade Mountain (玉山) have a fair chance of snow. With outdoor activities surrounding the traditional Lantern Festival scheduled for Thursday, the CWB urged participants to carry umbrellas and wear rain gear.
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