■ Community
Catch 2006 at Taipei 101
The world's tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101, is inviting the public to watch the first sunrise of next year at its observatory on the 89th floor, officials said yesterday. The activity will be held from 4:30am on Jan. 1, but only 1,010 admission tickets will be available, they said. The tickets must be purchased in advance and buyers will be offered a gift box containing a set of commemorative badges and cards on which they can write down their New Year's wishes. Visitors will be able to hang their cards on a "wishing tree," the officials said.
■ Politics
Man says he paid voters
A man surnamed Hong turned himself in at the Banciao (板橋) District Public Prosecutors Office yesterday after allegations that the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Taipei County commissioner candidate, Luo Wen-chia (羅文嘉), had paid out a "travel subsidy" to help voters attend his Nov. 27 campaign rally. Hong apparently told prosecutors he voluntarily gave a number of people NT$300 each so that they could attend the rally. DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), Luo's campaign manager, said that Hong is not one of the DPP's local organizers, and had handed out money on his own behalf. "While the travel allowance has nothing to do with Luo's campaign team, we have to say that it was very inappropriate behavior and we regret it," Lee said.
■ Society
MOI to form new group
A committee on the prevention of domestic violence and child abuse is to be established immediately, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The committee will offer rewards to those who report cases of domestic violence, Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said. According to ministry figures, there were 7,481 child-abuse cases reported this year as of September, surpassing the 5,927 cases as of September last year, and 30 deaths.
■ Fisheries
Tuna licenses at risk
The licenses of 42 tuna boats ordered to return home after the international community's cut in quotas for Taiwan's bigeye tuna catch will be revoked if the ships refuse to return to port, Fisheries Administration Deputy Director-General Sha Chih-i (沙志一) said yesterday. Sha said the agency is poised to revoke the licenses and will ask the international fishery community to treat them as illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing vessels whose catches will be banned from export. Ship owners who fail to bring their boats home will face prison terms of three to seven years, he said.
■ Politics
Actresses sue Cho Po-yuan
The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) newly-elected Changhwa County commissioner, Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源), is likely to face a lawsuit filed overseas against him for using the images of two Japanese actresses on one of his election flyers without authorization. The management companies for the two actresses, Norika Fujiwara and Inamori Izumi, are planning to sue Cho for violation of intellectual property laws, TVBS reported. According to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), the photos of the two actresses were from promotional photos used by Kanebo, a leading cosmetics company in Japan, in 2001. The DPP accused Cho of trying to pass the actresses off as his schoolmates, Hsu Hui-pao (許蕙寶) and Ku Hsiang-ling (谷湘玲). Cho yesterday said he didn't know that the women were Japanese actresses.
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