A government critique of a US Department of State report on human trafficking in Taiwan was based on last year's version of the annual report, and not on this year's, the critique's chief author said yesterday.
A study by the US' Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticizing the State Department's methodology was detailed yesterday by the Taipei Times ("Report Puts US' Sex-Trade Rebuke of Taiwan in Doubt," page 1).
The article reported that the GAO study was based on this year's report.
However, the chief author of the GAO study, Thomas Melito, said yesterday that it was based primarily on last year's report. He said that the GAO looked at this year's report, but not in as much detail as the earlier report, after comments were made by agencies mentioned in the GAO study.
The GAO study criticized the politicization of process by which the state department chose to categorize countries' efforts to combat human trafficking.
Many of the criticisms made of Taiwan in last year's report were repeated in this year's report. For instance, the reports in both years concluded that, "Taiwan authorities do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, they are making significant efforts to do so."
Taiwan was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List this year because it "failed to show evidence of increasing efforts" to address trafficking, wording absent from last year's report.
Last year's report also placed somewhat greater emphasis on trafficking to Taiwan from China, as opposed to from Southeast Asia.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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