■ SPORTS
Kaohsiung to join lotto bid
The Kaohsiung City Government is working with the Bank of Kaohsiung on a bid to issue a sports lottery to help finance its hosting of the 2009 World Games, city officials said yesterday. They said they hoped that the central government would approve its bid to promote balanced development of southern and northern Taiwan. Three other banks -- Chinatrust Commercial Bank, Taipei Fubon Bank and Taishin International Bank -- are also competing for the right to issue a sports lottery. Although Bank of Kaohsiung cannot compare with the other three in terms of capital and scale, it is confident of winning the bid, bank officials said. If approved, the bank would have the sports lottery ready by April 15 at the latest, they said.
■ POLITICS
Last ambassador to US dies
James Shen (沈劍虹), the last ambassador to the US before Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, has died, relatives said yesterday. He was 98. Shen died after a lengthy illness at his Taipei home on Thursday. Born in Shanghai, Shen had served as an English interpreter for dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). Shen was appointed US ambassador in 1971, months before then US president Richard Nixon visited Beijing and signed a communique to acknowledge the so-called "one China" policy. Despite Shen's efforts to persuade Washington not to abandon its World War II ally, the US severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979. Shen returned to Taipei and retired. He is survived by his wife, Wei Wei-yi (魏惟儀).
■ CULTURE
Chiayi to host world bands
Chiayi will host the 2011 International Conference of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠) said at a news conference yesterday, adding that hosting the world-class musical event would help improve Taiwan's image in the international community. Huang said she led a delegation to bid for the right to host the biennial meeting at the 2007 WASBE International Conference held from July 8 to last Saturday in Killarney, Ireland, and got the nod from the WASBE board of directors. WASBE is the only international organization of wind band conductors, composers, performers, publishers, teachers, instrument makers and friends of wind music. It has more than 1,000 individual and organizational members in more than 50 countries around the world.
■ HEALTH
Heart surgery shown live
A heart operation performed at a medical center in Taipei County was transmitted live to a conference in Tokyo yesterday. At the invitation of the Japanese Association of Cardiovascular Surgery, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital took part in the 9th annual symposium of the Japanese off-pump coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) association in Tokyo via satellite hookup. More than 300 heart doctors took part in the symposium, during which they watched surgeries conducted live in Taiwan and Japan. Taiwan's team performed the surgery on a 43-year-old male patient. Hospital Director Chu Shu-hsun (朱樹勳) said the conference had boosted cross-border exchanges on cardiovascular surgery and also helped the international medical community learn more about the expertise of Taiwan's cardiovascular surgeons. The transmission did not affect the surgery, he said. Doctors wore cameras mounted on their heads.
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