■ CRIME
Customs Office seizes cash
The Taipei Customs Office confiscated HK$975,000 (US$124,915) in undeclared cash from a tourist arriving from Macau at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Monday, a customs officer said on Wednesday. The officer said customs officials found the money in the tourist's carry-on baggage. The maximum permitted amount that can be brought in undeclared is US$10,000 in foreign currency or NT$60,000 in local currency. The case marked Taiwan's seventh confiscation of undeclared currency. Of the seven cases, two involved local currency -- one case of NT$13.87 million and the other of NT$10.13 million in undeclared cash. Five other cases involved foreign currency, with a total of NT$26.66 million confiscated, the officer said.
■ SCIENCE
Mastodon uncovered
Fossil remains of a mastodon calf were recently discovered in the dry riverbed of Dajia River (大甲溪) near Shihkang Village (石崗) in Taichung County, sources at the Taichung Mountainview Community University reported yesterday. They also noted that the discovery marks the first time that local archaeologists have found proof that Taiwan was once home to the prehistoric elephant species, which is estimated to have existed from about 28 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. Mastodon fossils have been unearthed in the past in various areas in the Northern Hemisphere, including in northern China, Europe, and North America. However, they had never been found in this region before the recent discovery which makes the find remarkable, according to the university. The fossil teeth discovered have been verified as having belonged to a young calf that lived in the area sometime between 1.5 million and 1.8 million years ago.
■ HEALTH
TSU wants bib crackdown
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday urged the government to crack down on lead-contaminated vinyl baby bibs from China which may pose a health threat to children. TSU spokeswoman Chou Mei-li (周美里) said that US toy giant Toys "R" Us removed all store-brand vinyl baby bibs from its store shelves across the US last Friday after tests confirmed that some of the Chinese-made items contained excessive levels of lead. Some 160,000 bibs -- marketed under the Koala Baby, Especially for Baby and Kidcosmic labels -- were taken off store shelves at Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us outlets across the US, Chou said. A Taiwan Toys "R" Us source said yesterday that its stores had not sold any of the lead-contaminated toys that had been pulled from store shelves in the US.
■ HEALTH
Banned substance detected
A pig in Taichung County has tested positive for the antibiotic chloramphenicol, the Taichung County livestock disease control center said yesterday. The concentration of chloramphenicol in the pig was 1.44 parts per billion. Huang Kwo-ching (黃國青), director of the animal health inspection division at the bureau of animal and plant health inspection and quarantine, said chloraphnical has been banned as a feed additive since 2002. "Only one animal was found to contain chloramphenicol residue. The amount detected was minute," Huang said. The owner of the feed lot could face fines of NT$6,000 to NT$30,000 under the Veterinary Drugs Control Act (動物用藥品管理法), he said.
■ CRIME
Police nab wholesaler
A wholesaler in Taipei has been arrested for suspected distribution of counterfeit fashion goods to retailers in southern Taiwan, police sources said yesterday. Members of a police squad formed to protect intellectual property rights and crack down on commercial piracy found more than 1,000 items of fake brand-name fashion goods during a raid on a storehouse owned by the wholesaler in the Wufenpu (五分埔) shopping area in Taipei City's Songshan district, the sources said. A large amount of boutique clothing, sportswear and handbags carrying various fake brand-name labels, including Nike, Adidas, Puma, Levi's, Chanel and Burberry, were seized in the raid.
■ SHIPPING
One dead in ship explosion
An explosion yesterday afternoon killed one and wounded two foreign sailors onboard a Panama-registered cargo ship named Balticace anchored near Kaohsiung Harbor. Kaohsiung Port Authority said initial investigation suggested the explosion was caused by the ship's mechanical equipment. As of press time, the port authority was still investigating the cause of the accident.
■ CRIME
Official guilty of slander
Kaohsiung District Court yesterday ruled the Taipei City Labor Affairs Department Director Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴) guilty of slander in a suit filed by Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) in 2003 that charged Su of damaging his reputation. The court sentenced Su to 50 days, but given the commutation statute, it can be reduced to 25 days. The case can still be appealed.
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