■ Health
Suicides cause alarm
Health authorities yesterday urged people to treasure life after 14 Taiwanese committed suicide the day before. "People who are suicidal should seek professional help, because to psychiatrists and psychologists, depression can be cured like a cold," said Lin Ming-cheng, a Department of Health (DOH) official in charge of suicide prevention. Lin said the DOH plans to set up a national suicide-prevention taskforce to coordinate efforts in raising public awareness and expanding the mental health care network. In 2003, Taiwan reported 3,195 suicides, averaging 8.7 a day or one suicide every two and a half hours. The rate was 14 suicides per every 100,000 inhabitants. Preliminary figures for last year revealed some 3,400 suicides, for an average of about 9.3 per day, the health department said. Japan has the highest suicide rate in Asia. About 30,000 Japanese commit suicide each year, averaging 80 per day, or one every 20 minutes.
■ Cross-strait ties
Beijing urged to talk to Chen
A top US official urged China yesterday to deal directly with the elected government of Taiwan. While the visits of Taiwanese opposition leaders to Beijing were a positive development, US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick said it wouldn't surprise him if the Chinese were trying to "foster division in Taiwan." "That's why it's important, obviously, for Beijing to deal with the elected government as well," Zoellick said. People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday became the second Taiwanese opposition leader to visit China in less than a week. "The need would be for Beijing to talk to the elected government in Taiwan," Zoellick said. "As you know, Mr. Soong is just headed for Beijing now, carrying a message from President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). We hope it will follow a positive course."
■ Media
CNA inks Mexican deal
The Central News Agency (CNA), the national news wire service, signed a cooperation agreement yesterday with Notimex, a Mexican news agency. The president of CNA, Lee Wai-lai (李萬來), and Enrigue Aranda Pedroza, director-general of Notimex, signed the agreement in a ceremony held at the agency's headquarters in Taipei. Under the agreement, both sides agreed to exchange news services, including text and photos. Aranda, who came to Taiwan on Monday at the invitation of the Government Information Office for a five-day visit, has called on government officials and met business executives. He also went to the National Palace Museum and Taipei 101, world's tallest skyscraper. He will leave Taiwan today. Notimex, which employs more than 500 people at home and overseas, is a semi-official news agency that was established in 1968.
■ Education
Swedes visit university
A six-member Swedish parliamentary group visited National Chiao Tung University yesterday. The group said this was their first visit to a Taiwanese university, and that they were very impressed by its good learning environment and verdant campus. The group also met Swedish exchange students from Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg. Chiao Tung University president Chang Chun-yen (張俊彥) said that the universities have close academic exchanges. There are currently eight Swedish students from Chalmers studying at Chiao Tung University, while the latter also has 10 college students and two students studying for their doctorates at the Swedish university.
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