■ Diplomacy
AIT to be closed on Friday
To honor the memory of former US president Ronald Reagan, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) will be closed Friday. This includes the consular section, American trade center, the American Cultural Center and the AIT Kaohsiung branch office. The institute urged those who already have appointments for interviews at AIT for non-immigratant visas scheduled for Friday to follow the information: Applicants originally scheduled between 8am and 9am should appear for the interview at AIT on Monday, June 14, at 10am. Those scheduled for 9am to 10 am on Friday should appear for the interview on Tuesday, June 15, at 10am. Those scheduled for 10am to 11 am should appear for the interview on Wednesday, June 16, at 10am. Those scheduled for 1pm to 2pm can go for the interview on Thursday, June 17, at 10am and those scheduled for 2pm to 2:30pm can go for the interview on Friday, June 18, at 10am.
■ Meetings
Tri-country forum in Tainan
Scientists and specialists from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are scheduled to gather in Tainan County today for the Fourth International Symposium on Land Surveying. Some 100 specialists from the government and private sectors of the three countries are expected to take part in the one-day symposium, titled "Land Surveying in the E-Age." The specialists, including 30-odd from Japan and a dozen from South Korea, are expected to discuss legal frameworks, regulations, technologies, information and applications regarding land surveying and policy, according to Land Survey Bureau officials.
■ Crime
Illegal Chinese detained
Twenty-one female Chinese stowaways aboard a Taiwanese fishing boat were intercepted off Ilan County, the coast guard reported yesterday. Coast guard officials stationed in the port township of Suao said the captain of the Mingchun-chia, surnamed Yeh, and a crew member surnamed Lien have been turned over to the Ilan Prosecutor's Office. Coast guard official Chiang Chao-lin (姜兆麟) said that after the Central Weather Bureau issued a sea warning for Typhoon Conson on Monday afternoon, ships flocked into the harbor seeking safe haven from the inclement weather. Smugglers would likely see this as an opportune time to carry out their activities, he said. Chiang said he has asked all coast guard personnel to step up surveillance.
■ Crime
Data leakers punished
Thirty civil servants have been disciplined for leaking personal information, the Cabinet announced yesterday. Eighteen of the staff were from the Coast Guard Administration, five were from the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau and 18 were from Chunghwa Telecom. Punishment ranged from a reprimand to dismissal. Eleven more civil servants also stand to be punished as the investigation continues. The penalties were handed down after Premier Yu Shyi-kun ordered on May 26 that civil servants be investigated for leaking 2 million entries of personal information to organized crime syndicates. Capping the one-year investigation, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office found that in 1995 an organized crime syndicate headed by Hsiao Ron-hsiung (蕭榮祥) started bribing law enforcement officers, coast guard examiners, Chunghwa Telecom employees and others for personal data.
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