■ Environment
Gift packaging excessive
An Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) survey yesterday showed that 14 percent of processed food gifts on the market are over-packaged. The over-packaged gifts are mostly found in supermarkets, which provided about 22 percent of all the samples surveyed. Chang Hsu-chang (張旭彰), section chief of the EPA's Waste Management Department, said that since processed food packaging will not be regulated until July this year, manufacturers of these gifts would not be penalized. The administration started regulating the packaging of pastries and alcohols last July. With the Lunar New Year holiday approaching, the administration began inspecting gifts on Jan. 27. Among the 1,003 gifts sampled, 23 percent were pastries, 26 percent alcohol and 51 percent were processed food.
■ Health
Society pushes free eye care
The Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan is calling on eye doctors to join a nationwide campaign to provide free eye care to elderly people who live alone. Society chairman Pan Chih-chin (潘志勤) quoted a study by the Department of Health saying that 38 percent of old people with eye disease are inclined to develop symptoms of depression -- about three times the rate in healthy old people. Pan said his group would invite more eye doctors to become "ambassadors" for the campaign to locate elderly people living alone who suffer from eye disease and offer them free treatment.
■ Labor
Workers invited to complain
Foreign workers are welcome to lodge petitions with the relevant labor agencies whenever they are treated improperly, a Council of Labor Affairs official said yesterday. Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良), a division chief at the Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, was responding to reports in the Philippine media that Filipina housemaids and caregivers have complained about their Taiwanese employers' reluctance to offer them days off. In the past, Tsai said, employers would fire foreign workers, but the situation has improved since last October when a new set of protective measures for foreign laborers went into force. Under the new system, local officials are required to verify every case involving the firing, advanced termination of contract and repatriation of foreign laborers and should assist in handling disputes between local employers and foreign employees.
■ Society
Dog rapist tracked down
Police used a DNA test to help a dog owner determine whether his female dog was "molested" and impregnated by another dog at a pet hotel, the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) reported yesterday. According to the report, the owner left his dog at a pet hotel while he went overseas last year. After he came back he discovered the dog was pregnant. The dog later gave birth to several pups. The dog owner said he believed his dog had been "molested" by another dog at the facility. Determined to find out how his dog was impregnated, the owner sought help from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation -- which conducts DNA tests to catch human criminals -- to help him find out who the father of the puppies was, BCC said. The results showed that the dog had been impregnated by another dog while at the hotel. The pet hotel owner apologized to the owner and they reached an out-of-court settlement.
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