■ Transportation
TRTC celebrates 10 years
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Taipei
Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) yesterday opened a 24-hour customer service line on 2181-2345 and installed two high-resolution, 6m-diameter electronic displays at Zhongxiao Fuxing Station's No. 2 exit for screening passenger information and commercials. The TRTC was set up to manage the MRT system in 1994, with the Muzha line the first to carry passengers in 1996. Over
the following four years, the Tamsui, Zhonghe, Xindian and Banqiao-Nangang lines opened for business. The MRT system has carried more than 1.6 billion passengers and will reach 2 billion passengers next year, TRTC chairman Richard Chen (陳樁亮) said at an anniversary function yesterday. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday praised the TRTC for helping make the MRT indispensable to the city
and encouraged the TRTC to provide even better service to customers in the next decade.
■ Hakka Affairs
Web site launched
The Council of Hakka Affairs launched a new online community for Hakka groups and communities yesterday. According to council representatives, the Web
site, Hakka Culture Club (www.land.ihakka.net),
will host free Web pages
for Hakka-related groups.
The council hopes that the
Web site will encourage interaction between Hakka communities and groups
and increase Hakka cultural pride. In addition to free Web page hosting services, the site features cultural news and event listings. The council plans to begin a series of promotional events for the Web site soon, including discussions on culture and Web page signup activities.
■ Tourism
Chiayi farm changes hands
The Veterans Affairs Commission's Chiayi Farm will be transferred to the private Janfushan Fancy World Group tomorrow to begin commercial operations under a refurbish-operate-transfer (ROT) formula. The farm in Tapu township is
the first of the commission's farms to be transformed into an eco-tourism park under the ROT formula, which allows private business groups to invest in renovating and operating government-owned facilities for a specified period of time before returning
them to the government, a spokesman said yesterday. The European-style Chiayi Farm, located near the Tsengwen Reservoir, was built in 1952. Both late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)
have stayed at the farm's presidential villa. The farm was gradually transformed into a recreational center
for civil servants and public school teachers in the 1990s. The February transfer was
in line with the government's policy of making better
use of state properties, the commission said.
■ Diplomacy
New post for MAC official
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Liu
Te-shun (劉德勳) was named Straits Exchange Foundation secretary-general and vice chairman by the foundation's board yesterday afternoon. Liu will be the first appointee since 1991 to serve in both organizations simultaneously. "Cross-strait negotiations should be resumed without conditions attached to
any topic and without any presumptions," Liu said. He said that his position at both organizations would allow them to function with greater coordination than before. Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) also pointed to the closer links between the organizations that
would result from Liu's appointment.
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