An amendment to the AIDS Pre-vention and Control Act (後天免疫缺乏症候群防治條例) passed the legislature yesterday, allowing foreign spouses who become infected with HIV to remain in the country as long as they can demonstrate they were infected by their Taiwanese spouse or in the course of receiving medical treatment in Taiwan.
Before the amendment came into force, foreign spouses who were infected with HIV, regardless of the circumstances, could be deported, whereupon they could apply for re-entry.
Others who stand to benefit from the new policy are people who have Taiwanese citizenship at birth but never obtained residency in the country.
Under the previous law, HIV could be grounds for denying such an individual residency, but the amended law now allows them to obtain residency provided they have a close relative -- such as a parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild -- living in Taiwan.
The act, meanwhile, also took on a new name yesterday and is now known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Prevention and Patients' Rights Protection Act (
The Legislature yesterday also passed an amendment to the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Law (傳染病防治法), enabling the administration to define newly emerging infectious diseases as threats to national security.
The amendment also grants the government the right to cull pets or domestic animals in the event of an outbreak of any communicable disease transmitted by animals.
An amendment to the Child and Juvenile Sexual Transaction Prevention Act (
The amendment stipulates that anyone caught with child pornography without a "proper reason" could be required to attend up to 10 hours of guidance for a first offense.
Recidivists could be fined up to NT$200,000 (US$6,000), the amendment stipulates, adding that any pornographic material found would be seized.
The "proper reasons" for possessing child pornography, as defined in the amended law, include scientific, educational and medical purposes.
Meanwhile, the popular electric bicycles used by many salary earners and older people also became subject to regulations yesterday after the Legislature passed an amendment to the Statute Governing the Punishment of Violation of Road Traffic Regulations (
The revision puts electric bicycles in the same "slow vehicle" category as normal bicycles, meaning that laws and regulations pertaining to scooters and motorcycles will not apply to electric bicycles. The revision also means that a driver's license will not be required to ride electric bicycles.
An electric bicycle is defined as having two wheels, a top speed of less than 25kph and a weight not exceeding 40kg,
An amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Law (
Only research institutions, colleges and universities, as well as public and private zoos are now allowed to import and export wild animals.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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