■ Earthquake
Quake measures 5.4
An earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale jolted northern Taiwan at 9:06pm last night, the Seismology Center said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The quake's epicenter was 38.9km northeast of Suao (蘇澳). The strong quake sent residents in Suao and other nearby townships rushing to the streets in panic. "It was a shallow tremor with a depth of just 1.8 kilometers, making the impact more obvious," said a center spokesman. The quake came hours after a weaker 4.6-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter 26km northwest of Peinan village (卑南) in the southeast.
■ Defense
China not holding drills
A Ministry of National Defense official said yesterday that the ministry has not detected any signs of large-scale military exercises on China, contrary to local media reports. According to ministry spokesman Liu Chih-chien (劉志堅), July is usually the time when land troops of the Chinese military undergo sea training, but there are no signs that massive maneuvers are currently taking place on Dongshan Island -- the usual site for these exercises. Liu urged the media not to misinterpret military activities in China. Liu was responding to a report that the People's Liberation Army has recently sent troops to Dongshan in preparation for the annual military exercise.
■ Crime
Chen backs drug crackdown
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that he will throw his full support behind the Cabinet's efforts to prioritize a crackdown on illicit narcotics to improve law and order. Chen made the remarks over a lunch with several of his advisers. He said statistics show that burglary, abduction, extortion, organized crime and indecency have affected the public most and that all of them are closely related to narcotics. If criminal cases related to drugs can be effectively controlled, it will immediately improve law and order, he said. Chen also said that the sharing of needles among drug addicts is the major cause of the rapid spread of AIDS in Taiwan so cracking down on narcotics has become a major issue in strengthening disease control and public health, and even ensuring national security.
■ Society
Zoos to improve ties
Taipei Zoo director Chen Pao-chung (陳寶忠) signed a pact with his counterpart at the Wroclaw Zoological Garden in Poland yesterday to step up technical exchanges between the two zoos. Speaking at the ceremony, Wroclaw Zoo director Antoni Gucwinskiu said that his zoo has decided to donate a pair of European otters to the Taipei Zoo as a gift for forging cooperative ties. The otters are scheduled to arrive in Taipei by the end of the year after completion of the quarantine procedures, Gucwinskiu said.
■ Health
Young people skip breakfast
Younger people tend to miss breakfast more often than other age groups, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS). The survey found that the younger a person is, the more likely he or she is to miss breakfast. Among respondents aged between 15 and 24, 22 percent of them miss breakfast on weekdays, with the ratio rising to 37 percent on weekends. Those aged above 65 tend to be most regular in terms of breakfast, with a ratio as high as 96 percent on average. The DGBAS said that medical reports show that missing breakfast can affect a person's energy and concentration.
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