■ Crime
Arrest in Japanese thefts
Police reported yesterday that they had arrested a man connected with a ring allegedly involved in stealing heavy-duty motorcycles from Japan. Hsieh Wen-hung (謝文宏), 26, was arrested at his shop in Pingtung where he reportedly sold the motorcycles. The police also impounded 22 motorcycles in a raid on June 18. Tokyo police confirmed yesterday that seven of the 22 motorcycles had been reported stolen from their city. Criminal Investigation Bureau agents said that they had received a tip from Interpol that Hsieh and some accomplices were involved in the motorcycle thefts. According to Interpol, the motorcycles were disassembled after being stolen and then exported to Taiwan under the guise of scrap metal.
■ Entertainment
Saisiat tale now a cartoon
The Disney Channel will be airing a five-minute cartoon based on local indigenous folklore on Saturday and Sunday at 8:55pm. The cartoon, The Lightening Spirit's Daughter: A Tale from Taiwan, is based on a Saisiat legend describing how the Saisiat people, who live in Miaoli and Hsinchu counties, became farmers. According to the legend, the Saisiat were hunters. The lightening god, saddened by the land being left to waste, sent his daughter to the Earth where she married a Saisiat man and taught the people how to farm. Although she eventually returned to the heavens, the Saisiat honor her memory by holding ceremonies each year. Disney is showing the cartoon as part of its cartoon series Legends of the Ring of Fire,which details myths from Southeast and Northeast Asia.
■ Travel
Tourist farms to be promoted
In a bid to achieve the Cabinet's aim of doubling the number of foreign tourist arrivals by 2008, government agencies will include tourist farms in their promotional plans, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday. According to the officials, the council and the Tourism Bureau have decided to join forces in promoting tourist farms to overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia, focusing on Hong Kong in particular this year. After a series of promotional activities in Hong Kong early last month, the first group of tourists is slated to arrive on July 25, where they will be accommodated at local tourist farms to experience the nation's natural landscape, rustic foods and environment, the officials said.
■ Women's Affairs
YWCA forum set for August
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of Taiwan, the Taipei YWCA and the World YWCA will co-host a global forum on young women's issues between Aug. 26 and Aug. 30 in Taipei. The forum, called "Young women leading global change," will be held at the Grand Hotel and will feature local and international speakers and panelists talking about young women and their roles in the workplace, in advocacy work and how they can use technology to further change. Keynote speakers will include Anamah Tan, president of the International Council of Women; Susan Packard Orr, of the YWCA's USA Campaign steering committee; Joanna Lei (雷倩), ETTV's executive director ; and Lin Fang-mei (林芳玫), member of the Coordination Commission of North American Affairs and former head of the National Youth Commission. To learn more about the event, go to www.ymca.org.tw/2004ywgf.
■ Drugs
Heroin shipment found
Law enforcement officers yesterday seized a large amount of heroin hidden in hollowed-out logs shipped from Thailand to Kaohsiung. The 130-plus heroin bricks, weighing about 56kg, were shipped to Taiwan in a 20-ft container declared as containing wood carvings. The seized drugs had an estimated street value of NT$2 billion. The team also managed to arrest two brothers surnamed Lung, believed to have thought up the smuggling operation. Prosecutor Yang Ta-chih (楊大智), from the Taitung Prosecutor's Office in eastern Taiwan, said his team had been monitoring the Lungs for more than a month. "Through wiretapping, the team discovered that the Lungs maintained constant contacts with two Thai citizens of Chinese descent in Bangkok and had used code numbers in their conversations. After an extensive analysis of their coded messages, we came to learn that they would smuggle contraband drugs into Taiwan via container," Yang said.
■ Entertainment
African cultures on show
An exhibition featuring the cultures of 40 African countries and a circus including various animals from Africa is scheduled to kick off at the Nankang Software Park in the Taipei City suburb of Nankang July 3. Artifacts, cultural and art performances representing the African countries will be on display and staged in a run of 57 days until Aug. 29. Admission is NT$100 per person, said the sponsors. Paralleling the exhibition and performances will be an African circus, which is a two-hour program featuring animal shows and other acts. Admission is NT$350 per person.
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