■ Environment
Stricken ship shifted
An Indonesian ship that ran aground off Kenting National Park last July was removed recently after more than a month of work, park administration officials said over the weekend. The 40-tonne vessel ran aground near Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) after being caught in a typhoon. The hull was seriously damaged and the vessel was unable to continue its voyage to Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the officials said that wreckage of a Greek freighter that had also run aground had sunk off nearby Lungkeng, posing a threat to the marine ecology in the area.
■ Transport
Inspectors check bullet train
Nine inspectors from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications began an inspection of the 5km-long high speed rail section between Banciao (板橋) and Taipei yesterday. Pang Chia-hua (龐家驊), director-general of the Bureau of High Speed Rail, said yesterday that inspectors first visited the high speed rail station in Taoyuan where they were briefed by Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) staff. Inspectors then boarded the bullet train from Taoyuan with other regular passengers. After passengers alighted at the station in Banciao, inspectors stayed on the train as it continued its journey to Taipei Main Station. The inspectors are expected to present a report by tomorrow. Regarding poor sales of full-priced tickets, Pang said the bureau would consider asking the THSRC to set different prices for trains operating during peak and off-peak hours.
■ Society
COIP outlines language plans
The Council of Indigenous People (COIP) will move forward a six-year program for the revitalization and development of Taiwan's Aboriginal languages this year. COIP education and culture section chief Wang Chiou-i (汪秋一) said that to maintain an Aboriginal tribal language it must be spoken by at least 75 percent of the tribe. He noted that many Aboriginal tribes are facing language crises, with only senior citizens using the traditional tongues. Wang added that the government needs to speed up measures to save these languages. The program covers several measures to regenerate Aboriginal languages, including enacting relevant statutes, setting up an organization to compile dictionaries and language teaching materials, training teachers, creating language immersion environments, using high-tech teaching tools, establishing a certification system for language proficiency and encouraging the learning of folk songs.
■ Health
Tests confirm leprosy case
A foreign worker from Indonesia has recently been diagnosed with leprosy, making him the first leprosy case reported in Taiwan this year. Chung Wen-hung (鐘文宏), a dermatologist at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, said that half of the patient's face was covered with rashes when he sought treatment at the hospital, and tests confirmed that he was suffering from leprosy. Chung said a Vietnamese woman married to a Taiwanese man was diagnosed by the hospital as suffering from leprosy last year and that both patients could have come to Taiwan while the disease was incubating. Shih Wen-yi (施文儀), deputy director-general of the Center for Disease Control, said the nation has, on average, reported less than 10 cases of leprosy per year in recent years, all of which have been imported in cases involving foreign workers or foreign spouses from countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
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