■ Health
Forum to be held
The Department of Health will hold a public forum based on a "Western model" to solicit public views and attitudes on the issue of surrogate motherhood for the government's reference in policy making. Lin Kuo-ming (林國明), an associate professor of National Taiwan University who will help organize the forum, said a preparatory meeting will be held on Aug. 28 and Aug. 29, while the formal meeting will be held from Sept. 11 to Sept. 18. Lin said that between 12 and 20 people who are not specialists on the subject will be invited to first read related information and then listen to experts' views on surrogate motherhood. Their conclusions will be written up in a report, he said. Those who would like to take part can visit the Web site tsd.social.ntu.edu.tw or call (02) 2363-0231 for more information.
■ Society
US scholarships offered
Kansas State University is offering grants to Aboriginal students to study in the US, offering each Aboriginal student US$10,000 for college or graduate study. The program, sponsored by Taiwanese alumni Lien Hua-chi (連華圻) and his wife Ho Mei-Hsien (何美賢), is designed to offer more international learning opportunities to Aboriginal students, who often have inferior resources, and to improve Aboriginals' lives through education. Students applying for the grants are required to submit grade reports, letters of recommendation and proposals describing how they will contribute to their communities after studying in the US. For more information, call Ms.Wu at (02) 2396-1166 extension 1852 or send e-mail to maggiewu@yfy.com.
■ Government
Compensation approved
The Cabinet yesterday approved draft amendments to the Statute Governing the Management of Law Enforcement Officers (警察人員管理條例) in order to take better care of law enforcement officers who are seriously injured in the line of duty, and of the families of those who die or are seriously injured. Under the draft, the Cabinet would earmark money to pay the medical and living expenses of law enforcement officers who become partially or fully handicapped in the line of duty and lose their ability to make a living. The Cabinet would also like to earmark money to pay the educational expenses of the children of law enforcement officers who die in the line of duty until the children become of age or finish their college educations.
■ Crime
Malaysian police sieze drugs
Malaysian Police arrested three people and seized 735,000 ringgit (US$193,400) worth of a drug similar to ecstacy that was allegedly smuggled in from Taiwan, officials said yesterday. Kuala Lumpur narcotics chief Othman Harun said the suspects -- a Malaysian couple and their friend -- were detained at a luxury condominium in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday after police found them with about 50,000 pills of Eremin 5, a new synthetic drug considered an alternative to ecstasy. Othman told reporters that the pills had been stashed in biscuit tins and carried as hand luggage through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. He declined to reveal when the pills were smuggled in or if the three suspects were couriers who had brought the drugs into Malaysia, saying investigations were ongoing and police may make more arrests.
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