■ Diplomacy
Choir performs at Vatican
A children's choir from Kaohsiung was scheduled to sing at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City yesterday, the first time that Taiwanese children will have sung at the church, one of the most prestigious in the Roman Catholic religion. The choir will sing together with Lu Yi-hui, a Taiwan-born vocalist based in Italy. Lu and the choir sang at a church that offers Chinese-language services in Rome on Sunday. The choir arrived in Rome early on Saturday on the first leg of of a performance tour that will also take it to France for a series of festivals. During its stay in France, the choir will also hold a Taiwanese folk-song concert.
■ Defense
New cadets start training
Some 1,500 new cadets of the military academies and institutes reported to the Chinese Military Academy in Fengshan, Kaohsiung County, yesterday to commence their eight-week enlistment training period. After the eight week training program, the cadets -- including two exchange students from El Salvador and 143 women -- will go to their respective schools. Army Commander-in-Chief General Chu Kai-sheng (朱凱生) officiated at a ceremony at the Chinese Military Academy marking the start of the training program. Chu welcomed the new recruits and exhorted them to present themselves as "strong, awe-inspiring new soldiers within three days" and to begin to cultivate their own "Whampoa Spirit" -- featuring sacrifice, consolidation, responsibility, courage and belief as well as trust.
■ Travel
Death compensation offered
The Macoto Tours travel agency apologized yesterday for the deaths of two Taiwanese during a trip to China, promising the families of each victim up to NT$2 million in liability insurance. Fan Kuo-tang (范國棠), 44, died of lung failure during a flight back to Taiwan on Sunday, despite initially being diagnosed with minor injuries to the arm and leg. Fan's family complained that they had only authorized his flight based on the doctor's diagnosis. Macoto Tours representative Tseng Tsai-hua (曾材樺) explained that the condition of all the injured tourists was verified by doctors before they were allowed to travel and family authorization was also sought. Eleven Taiwanese tourists were injured last week when their bus' brakes failed, causing the bus to crash into a ditch after hitting a bridge. The other fatality was killed in the crash.
■ Society
Spouses get summer camp
In an effort to help foreign spouses adapt to life in Taiwan, the Keelung City Government in northern Taiwan has launched a summer camp to serve this end, a city government spokesman said yesterday. The camp, which started July 15 and will run until Aug. 27, offers classes in languages, culture, human relations, medical care, cuisine, psychiatric assistance and immigration rules for foreign husbands and wives of Keelung citizens, the spokesman said. Currently, there are more than 5,500 foreign spouses living in Keelung City, more than 4,000 of whom come from China, municipal statistics show. Cultural differences are usually the biggest hurdle between foreign spouses and their Taiwanese families and locals should treat their foreign relatives with greater compassion and care, a Keelung City Government official said.
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