■ DIPLOMACY
Ally prime minister to visit
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that Sao Tome and Principe Prime Minister Tome Vera Cruz will lead a delegation to Taiwan on Monday for a four-day visit. Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) will host a birthday party for Cruz on the day of his arrival, ministry officials said. Cruz will call on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) to exchange views on the situation in Africa, bilateral relations and cooperation projects, the officials said. Cruz is also expected to visit information, textile, harbor, power and agriculture facilities, they said. Cruz, who assumed the post of prime minister in April last year, last visited Taiwan in April 2005.
■ HEALTH
Bone marrow donated
A shipment of bone marrow donated by a female Chinese national and tested as a compatible match for a potential Taiwanese recipient is scheduled to arrive in Taipei today. The bone marrow, expected to be delivered from Shanghai to an operating theater at Taipei Veterans General Hospital late tonight, will be transplanted to a 15-year-old girl suffering from inherited anemia. It will mark the first case in which someone from China has donated bone marrow for a Taiwanese recipient. Taiwanese had donated bone marrow to Chinese recipients over the past several years under the arrangements made by Taiwan's Tzu Chi Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Center. The center -- the largest of its kind in Asia -- has built up a databank of nearly 300,000 bone marrow samples since its inception in 1993. It has helped more than 300 victims of blood diseases find donors.
■ CULTURE
Fishermen's fest next week
A Fishermen's Festival will be held next Saturday and Sunday at Waipu Fishing Harbor (外埔漁港) in Houlong Township (後龍), Miaoli County, to mark Fishermen's Day. Activities at the festival will include an exhibition of the local fishing culture, ecological tours, sales of seafood products, seafood specialty cooking classes, a concert and fireworks at night, said Chen You-ching (陳有慶), president of the Taiwan Fishery Association. Visitors will be able to participate in qian gu (牽罟) -- a traditional fishing technique that involves the entire community -- and to see shi hu (石滬), or stone fish traps that once dotted the nation's seacoasts, but now can only be found in Miaoli and Penghu, historian Wang Chi-jen (王啟仁) said.
■ POLITICS
Hsieh leaves on US trip
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) will head to the US today for an eight-day visit, his campaign spokesman said yesterday. The trip will take Hsieh to New York, Washington, Detroit and Los Angeles, Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said. "The visit is aimed at building a channel of communication between Hsieh and the US. We hope it will pave the way for long-term communication," Chao said. In New York, Hsieh will attend a Yankees baseball game, in which Wang Chien-ming (王建民) will be the starting pitcher. He is also scheduled to deliver a speech at the National Press Club in Washington and attend the launch of his supporter clubs in the US capital and Los Angeles. Chao declined to comment on local news reports that Hsieh was to meet with officials from the Pentagon, the US National Security Council and the Department of State, including Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns.
■ CRIME
Police nab pigeon suspects
Four men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of being part of a fraud ring in Tainan County, the Tainan Prosecutors Office announced yesterday. The prosecutors said the five suspects set up nets to trap racing pigeons in several townships in Tainan County in January. They then demanded ransoms of between NT$2,000 and NT$5,000 per bird. The ring made more than NT$1 million (US$30,000), according to the prosecutors. The ring members also rented a building in Tainan and used it as a base for tricking Chinese people to remit money to a specific bank account in China in exchange for "tax rebates," the prosecutors said. Two of the suspects were detained and the other three were released on bail, while the prosecutors continue their probe.
■ CULTURE
Poles attend language camp
A total of 32 students from various universities in Warsaw, Poland, are attending a Mandarin language study camp at National Kaohsiung Normal University. University president Dai Chia-nan (戴嘉南) said yesterday that the 42-day language and cultural workshop was co-sponsored by the school's Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Poland. The Polish students are taking Chinese lessons for 20 hours per week, as well as Chinese painting, calligraphy, tea ceremony, paper cutting, kung fu, opera and Taichi courses. The program also includes visits to tourist attractions and cultural institutions, including major Taoist temples, the Foguangshan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education, Chengcing Lake and Kaohsiung City Council.
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