■ Health
DOH to tackle TB rise
As the number of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) con-tinues to rise each year, the Department of Health is preparing to spend NT$2.9 billion (US$87.87 million) over the next five years on the diagnosis and cure of the disease. Center for Disease Control Director-General Su Yi-jen (蘇益仁) said that among the new TB cases reported each year, 22 percent are actually lung cancer cases that were mis-diagnosed. He said this shows that a positive sputum-smear test is required to confirm TB, in addition to X-rays. Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳), director of infectious diseases at the National Taiwan University Hospital, said that for a new TB patient, the typical symptoms of fever, coughing and weight loss may not be apparent and even a sputum smear may not be sufficient for a positive diagnosis. Dr. Yang Su-piao (楊思標) cautioned that the quality and quantity of examiners for smear tests are insuffi-cient, noting that one examiner can conduct a maximum of 30 of the time-consuming tests a day. Su said that the department's five-year project aims to raise the cure rate for TB to 87 percent and lower the mortality rate to less than four out of every 100,000 cases by 2008.
■ Diplomacy
Moscoso congratulates Chen
Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso yesterday congratulated President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on his re-election. "I am pleased to offer you my warm greetings and to express, in the name of my government, the Panamanian people, and the country, our satisfaction with the election results," Moscoso said in a letter to Chen. He also wished Chen success as president.
■ Culture
Canadian firm inspects site
A team from Lord Cultural Resources Planning and Management of Canada yesterday inspected the site in Chiayi County allocated for a branch of the National Palace Museum. The firm won the bid to develop a blueprint for the Chiayi branch and yesterday's visit was the first time its staffers have inspected the site in Taipao City. Chuck Sutyla, Lord's project director, said he was impressed by the site's convenient location and the tourist resources in the area. The site is near the Taipao station of the high-speed railway, which is scheduled for completion late next year. The Canadian firm has helped build museums in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Philippines and Chicago, Illinois, but the Chiayi project will be its first in Taiwan. The branch museum is scheduled to open in 2008.
■ Travel
Macau transit stops decline
The number of passengers from Taiwan who used Macau's airport last year dropped by 33 percent, reflecting the largest plunge in traveler numbers on all routes around the world to the airport since it began operations, according to statistics released by the Macau authorities. The tallies show a total of 2.9 million passengers used the airport last year, a drop of about 30 percent compared to the 2002 level. During the Lunar New Year holiday season this year, people from Taiwan paid only about 169,000 visits to Macau, a 1 percent drop from January last year. Sources in Macau's aviation industry attributed the decline in passengers from Taiwan to last year's opening of a Shanghai-Taipei route via Okinawa. The source claimed that at least 10 percent of travelers now opt for non-Macau routes when they fly between Taiwan and China.
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