■ Politics
More voters on poll roles
There are 16,559,254 eligible voters for Saturday's elec-tions, an increase of 736,671 over the previous legislative elections, the Central Elec-tion Commission said yesterday. Of the total, 16,258,979 voters are eligible to vote for candidates running for regional seats, while 300,275 voters are eligible to vote for candi-dates running for Aboriginal seats. There are 386 candi-dates competing for 168 regional seats and 18 candi-dates running for eight Aboriginal seats. There are also eight overseas Chinese seats and 41 at-large seats
to be filled based on a pro-portional representative system. A total of 13,930 polling stations will be open nationwide, officials said. The constituencies with more than 1 million eligible voters are Taoyuan County (1.26 million), Taichung County (1.06 million) and the first constituency in Taipei City (1.003 million).
■ Election
Military status normal
The military will maintain a normal alert level for Satur-day's legislative elections, military spokesman navy Captain Liu Chih-chien (劉志堅) said yesterday. Speaking at a regular news conference at the Ministry
of National Defense, Liu
said that under the present combat alert system, only a normal alert level is required for legislative elections
day, with only a certain percentage of troops staying in military barracks. With
the consent of the comman-ding officers, Liu said, those troops can also temporarily leave the barracks to cast their ballots. In comparison, Liu said, the presidential election day is subject to a heightened alert. The main difference between the
two levels of alert lies in
the rank of the commanding officers required to stay in the barracks. At the normal alert level, Liu said, a relatively high-ranking commanding officer is required to stay in the barracks. When the military is on heightened alert, he said, all levels of comman-ding officers and the chief political warfare officers must stay.
■ Labor
Higher wage pushed
Some 20 students petitioned the Council of Labor Affairs yesterday for a higher min-imum wage. The students consider the minimum wage of NT$66 per hour too low. According to the students, due to high tuition and living costs, many students take up part-time jobs. But the minimum wage does not cover their basic needs.
The newly adjusted require-ment for work hours, which was passed in 2001, is 84
per fortnight. But the mini-mum wage is still calculated based on the old work hours of 48 per week. The students suggested the new work hour adjustment to be taken into consideration for a
new minimum wage figure. In response, the council said public hearings regarding students' part time jobs would be held.
■ Diplomacy
Malaysian group arriving
A group of young Chinese-Malays left Malaysia yes-terday for Taiwan where they will engage in cultural exchanges. The 340 Malay-sians will visit various places around the country during their 21-day visit. Several Malaysia officials and Tai-wanese representatives spoke at the farewell cere-mony and a special flag was also given to the group. Among the officials who attended the ceremony were Lee Tsung-fen (李宗芬), Lin Wei-teh (林渭德) and Chung Wen-chang (鍾文昌) from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Malaysia, as well as Malaysia's Youth and Sports Vice Minister Ong Tee Keat (翁詩傑).
■ Foreign Aid
Taiwan helping Mongolia
The nation's participation in the implementation of the Mongolia Cooperation Fund signifies that the country has transformed from a donor to an executor of foreign aid, officials of the International Cooperation and Develop-ment Fund said yesterday. Taiwan has cooperated with the European Bank for reconstruction and development in executing the Mongolia Cooperation Fund, which includes providing training to members of small and medium-sized enterprises in Mongolia. Addressing the graduation ceremony for a group of 17 trainees of the program, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) said the program will not only benefit the small and medium-sized enterprises in Mongolia but also exhibit Taiwan's devotion to the international community.
■ Politics
Vote-buying action pledged
Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭) reassured the public yesterday that any vote-buying activities ahead of Saturday's legislative elections will be rooted out, regardless of candidates' political affiliations. Wu made the remarks during a meeting with two officials from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and Hwang Teh-fu (黃德福), who visited the Supreme Prosecutor's Office to urge the nation's highest prosecution authority to be more watchful against vote-buying activities as Satur-day's legislative elections draw near. In response, the prosecutor-general said he las t month instructed all investigation teams around the nation to step up their efforts in the battle against vote-buying. He added that investigators of the anti-vote-buying unit set up for the legislative elections have been dispatched to police stations around the nation.
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