■ CRIME
Fake brands seized
Kaohsiung City police arrested a man suspected of selling counterfeit brand-name children's clothing, a police official said yesterday. Around 500 pieces of counterfeit goods were also seized in the raid. The official said that the suspect, surnamed Chang, was caught selling the high-quality counterfeit products at a market in the city. Police are investigating to locate the suppliers of the counterfeit products, the official said.
■ TRANSPORT
Alishan station reopens
The Alishan Railway Station in Chiayi County was reopened yesterday after years of reconstruction following damage sustained during the devastating 921 earthquake in 1999. The first train to depart from the station was an antique train with wooden carriages and powered by a steam locomotive. Chiayi Forest District Office Director Yeh Hsien-liang (葉賢良) said the two-story station is the largest wooden railway station in the country. From the balcony on the second floor of the station, travelers are able to see Alishan's (阿里山) scenic landscapes and "cloud sea," Yeh said. The station lies on the Alishan Forest Railway, which starts in Chiayi City and meanders through Chiayi and Nantou counties, carrying passengers up and down the mountain.
■ SCIENCE
Penghu hosts scientists
Magnetic field detection operations in a nationwide geological survey started this week on Penghu, the fourth and final stage of the project, academic sources said on Wednesday. The project, conducted by the Hsinchu-based Industrial Technology Research Institute, has already visited Ilan, Hualien and Pingtung counties, and its work in Penghu is expected to take 45 days. The institute said the goal of the project is to better understand the nation's geological structures, as well as to lay the foundation for future studies.
■ LIVESTOCK
Banned drug detected
A goose from a fowl farm in Taoyuan County has been found to contain salbutamol, a banned drug used to promote the growth of lean meat in livestock, the director general of the Department of Health's Bureau of Food Sanitation said yesterday. Cheng Hui-wen (鄭惠文) made the announcement while making public the results of the bureau's spot checks on marketed geese around the country last month. One of 19 samples for banned drug tests was found to have excessive traces of salbutamol, Cheng said, adding that the problematic sample was taken from the Yung Yu goose farm. The farm faces a fine of between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000, he said.
■ Tourism
Delegation targets Singapore
A tourism delegation organized by the Taiwan Visitors Association (TVA) will take part in a Singapore international travel fair to attract tourists from the city state. Speaking at a press conference, TVA Advisor Shao Chung-hua (邵仲華), who is leading the delegation, said Taiwan's Tourism Bureau has set a growth target rate for Singaporean and Malaysian tourists to Taiwan this year at 7 percent. According to Shao, around 180,000 tourists from Singapore visited Taiwan last year, an annual growth rate of 10.8 percent, while the number of tourists from Malaysia rose 7.2 percent. Meanwhile, Chi Cheng (紀政), chairman of the Organizing Committee for the 2009 World Games, to be held in Kaohsiung, will also lead a group to Singapore with a view to attracting visitors.
■ CULTURE
Cross-strait festival
A group of 110 academics and members of various performance troupes from Taiwan plan to take part in the first Cross-Taiwan Strait Folk Arts Festival from Sept. 21 to Sept. 24 in Xiamen, Fujian Province. A 20-member delegation from Kinmen County, led by the county government's Cultural Affairs Bureau Director Li Hsi-lung (李錫隆), will also attend the festival. All the Taiwanese participants are to travel directly to Xiamen by boat from the island of Kinmen. The festival is sponsored by the Chinese Friendship Association of Culture, the Xiamen municipal government and the Fujian Provincial Government.
■ DIPLOMACY
Vietnam protests airstrip
Vietnam issued a statement yesterday protesting against Taiwan's plan to build an airstrip on one of the disputed Spratly islands. Taiwanese defense officials have said they plan to build an airfield on what Vietnam calls Itu Aba, the largest of the Spratlys, a chain of islands and rocky outcrops in the South China Sea. "Vietnam possesses adequate historical evidence and legal foundations to proclaim its sovereignty over the Hoang Sa [Paracel] and Truong Sa [Spratly] archipelagos," Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said. "All activities in the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos which are not approved by Vietnam are violations of Vietnam's sovereignty in these areas and are devoid of legal merit," he said. Dung said Vietnam "urges Taiwan to immediately desist from continuing with its plan as well as similar activities in the Truong Sa archipelago." The Spratlys are claimed in full or in part by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
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