■ Health
Acupressure effective: study
Acupressure has proved more effective than conventional therapy in relieving lower back pain, according to a Taiwanese study. Almost 90 percent of patients in the study found their disability was reduced by acupressure -- applying pressure with thumbs and fingertips to the same points on the body stimulated in acupuncture. Low back pain is a common problem worldwide. The researchers, whose study was published online by the British Medical Journal today, recruited 129 patients with chronic lower back pain from an orthopedic clinic. Half were given conventional physical therapy and half were treated by acupressure. Acupressure reduced disability for 89 percent of those treated and the improvement lasted for six months.
■ Crime
Play mahjong or go to jail
Drunk drivers and other petty criminals can now choose their penalty: Do time or play mahjong with the elderly. Petty criminals are increasingly being handed a variety of civil duties rather than serving time in prison or cleaning the streets, said an official at the Taoyuan Prosecutors Office. Playing mahjong with token money has taught offenders to love and care for the elderly, the official said. "The offenders first dismissed the duty as a waste of time, but they soon discovered they were respected and drew satisfaction from helping the elderly," she said. The government has encouraged prosecutors to hand out such duties to petty criminals, such as first-time burglars, instead of jail terms, she said.
■ Society
Chewing gum proves fatal
A Changhua County resident has died after choking on chewing gum, according to a local media report. The 26-year-old decorator, surnamed Wu, died on Tuesday when he and another worker were working on the interior of a garment store, the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) reported. The other worker was climbing up a ladder to fix the ceiling of the store when he heard a thud and saw that Wu -- who had been standing on the floor -- had fallen down, the BCC said. An ambulance rushed Wu to a hospital but he died on the way. Doctors found a piece of chewing gum, 3cm thick, lodged in Wu's windpipe. Doctors assumed that Wu was chewing more than one piece of chewing gum which slid into his throat when he suddenly looked up at the worker on the ladder, causing him to suffocate.
■ Government
NSC officials to use trusts
High-ranking members of the National Security Council (NSC) will put their assets into trust just as other senior political appointees in the Cabinet have been required to do, council officials said yesterday. The affected parties will include council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) and Deputy Secretary-General Parris Chang (張旭成). The move will be made in line with a package of regulations passed last week by the Executive Yuan. Under the measures, 132 officials, including the premier, vice premier, ministers and their deputies, their spouses and dependents, will have to place into trust any real estate other than their personal residences, as well as listed or over-the-counter stocks. Immediately after the passage of the regulations on Feb. 8, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and three top aides to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced that they would comply with the regulations. Chen placed his assets into trust on April 14, 2004, to honor a promise he made in his 2004 re-election campaign.
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