■ Education
Hoklo software available
The Ministry of Education announced yesterday that it had posted a link on its Web site offering free downloads of its new Romanized computer input system for the Hoklo language (commonly known as Taiwanese). The software can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, a ministry press release said, adding that installation and study guides were included in the downloading process. The system corrects flaws in the previous Romanization system for Hoklo, the ministry said.
■ Politics
The curse of Hello Kitty
The director of the Taipei County Government's civil affairs department was downgraded to senior executive officer after the department failed to finish a mascot Hello Kitty lantern for the county's lantern festival. Taipei County Deputy Commissioner Chen Wei-ren (陳威仁) announced the demotion of Huang Li-tzu (黃麗足) on Monday in the wake of the mounting complaints over the absence of the Hello Kitty lantern at the festival. Although the festival was sponsored by Sanrio Company and managed by a private public relations firm, Chen said that the department should take responsibility for the oversight. Chen said the company that was supposed to provide the mascot lantern had apologized to the government and that the festival would be held again next year. He added that the government would apply a tighter screening process in choosing sponsors.
■ Politics
Late candidate too late
Huang Kuang-kuo (黃光國), a psychology professor at National Taiwan University who intends to compete in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) presidential primary, yesterday called on the party to re-examine his qualifications and not exclude him from the race. Huang applied to join the KMT on Dec. 8 last year, and received party membership on Jan. 16. According to the KMT's regulations, however, a candidate must be a party member for at least four months before he or she can run for a public post. With the registration deadline for the primary falling on April 22, presidential hopefuls needed to become members before Dec. 22. Huang complained that the party had delayed his application process, and urged KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to re-examine the process. The KMT yesterday said it would ask its Taipei chapter to reconsider the situation.
■ Education
Schools hope for foreigners
A Taiwanese delegation consisting of international exchange chiefs from 25 universities is currently attending an international education show in Singapore, held under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE), an official with the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The official said the 25 universities participating in the exhibition, which began yesterday and finishes on Friday on the sidelines of the 2007 APAIE Conference, hoped to attract more foreign students to pursue advanced studies in Taiwan. The delegation, led by Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳), will take advantage of the show to expound on recent developments at the nation's universities as well as the competitive edge of its institutions of higher education and government measures aimed at encouraging foreigners to study Mandarin in Taiwan, the official said.
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