■ Politics
Merger announcement off
The pan-blue camp's plans to announce a merger of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its two splinter parties at the KMT's 110th founding anniversary cele-brations today in Taoyuan have been canceled, party sources said yesterday. The sources said KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) were to announce the merger at the anniversary celebrations to help boost the pan-blue camp's legislative candi-dates. A PFP spokesman
has confirmed that Soong will not be present at the event. Lien, KMT Vice Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), other KMT mayors and commissioners and the party's legislative candidates will attend.
■ Education
School backs name change
A name change by a univer-sity has triggered a stir on campus, but school presi-dent Lin Chien-chang (林見昌) said the move was approved by its faculty. National Huwei University of Science and Technology in Yunlin changed its name in English to "National For-mosa University" almost two months ago. "This is a democratic society. Only a few students, who expressed dissent over the new name by sending e-mails, is enough to create contro-versy," one university official said yesterday. "I don't see the relation between the word `Formosa' and our Chinese name `Huwei,'" a student was quoted as saying by a TV news show. But other stu-dents defended the new English title. "I think `For-mosa' is good as a name and easier for foreigners to remember," said one.
■ Education
Schools' centenaries marked
The Ministry of Education held a celebration yesterday for the 100th anniversary of 21 elementary schools founded between 1904 and July 1905. There was a preview of an exhibition of some items used by the schools -- flags, students' manuscripts, diaries, bells and photos -- at the ministry yesterday. The exhibition will go on display at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall from Dec. 11-19. Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) said while schools used to celebrate their 100th anniversaries individually, the ministry will now hold joint celebrations each year to show its concern for the schools' historical heritage. Tu said modern education was introduced to Taiwan by the Japanese colonial government in 1895, when it established two schools here. Seven more schools were built in 1896, 56 schools were set up in 1898 and 166 more were founded in 1904, Tu said.
■ Defense
No alert for elections
The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday that the military will maintain general combat readiness and regular leave for next month's legislative elections. Ministry spokesman Major General Huang Suey-sheng (黃穗生) made the remarks during a regular ministry press conference. He said the military only goes on heightened alert for a presidential election, Lunar New Year and Double Ten National Day so there are no special plans to have addi-tional personnel on duty.
He stressed that the
decision was based on the principles of the national-ization of the army, admin-istrative neutrality and non-interference in politics. Huang also said that all military personnel will be able to exercise their voting rights.
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