■ Aid given to Israeli group
Taiwan Representative to Israel Ting Gan-cheng (丁干城) on Friday donated US$10,000 to Sparrow, an Israeli environmental group. Ting said that although Taiwan was excluded from international environmental organizations, the nation had since 1996 sponsored 110 international nature conservation organizations. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed a world environmental organization earlier this year with the aim of protecting the environment, Ting said. He said Taiwan also needed friends around the world to help it take part in the international efforts to help the environment and that he was happy to donate the money to Sparrow on behalf of the government. Sparrow was founded in 2005 and its members are mostly pilots who are concerned about the environment. They volunteer to fly over Israeli nature conservation parks to monitor poaching, illegal dumping of waste and the destruction of crucial sea turtle habitat.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Penghu gets help on waste
The Kaohsiung City Government has agreed to help the Penghu County Government deal with its garbage problem by handling as much as 60 tonnes of its garbage. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) offered the help during a visit by Penghu County Commissioner Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) on Friday. Wang told Chen that landfill sites in Penghu were filled to capacity. The central government's refusal to allow Penghu County to build an incinerator for fear it might pollute the island chain's environment means that the county is unable to deal with its waste problem on its own. Chen said the Kaohsiung City Government was willing to help Penghu preserve its status as an unspoilt part of Taiwan. The garbage will be transported from Penghu by ship and burned in Kaohsiung's incinerator, at a cost of NT$730 per tonne.
■ POLITICS
Chen denies Chang threat
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday denied a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News claiming that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) had threatened to resign should the Cabinet not be allowed to adjust gasoline prices in accordance with the floating pricing mechanism. The Cabinet's insistence on increasing oil prices in accordance with the mechanism has attracted the concern of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who is in favor of government intervention on oil prices. Cabinet Secretary-General Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) said yesterday that the news report was "groundless."
■ POLITICS
Events mark anniversary
The Straits Exchange Foundation will organize a series of activities to mark the 20th anniversary of cross-strait exchanges. The activities include the screening of a documentary chronicling the 20-year history of cross-strait exchanges -- produced through a collaboration between the foundation and the Public Television Service -- said Michael You (游盈隆), secretary-general and vice chairman of the foundation. The foundation will also hold a two-day symposium at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, starting on Dec. 7, and later publish the papers and symposium minutes, You said. The foundation hopes to create an opportunity to learn and exchange ideas concerning its policies on cross-strait exchanges, he said.
■ Park to stage WWII service
This year's annual Remembrance Day service in honor of those who fought and died in World War II will be held on Nov. 18 at the POW Memorial Park on the site of the former Kinkaseki POW Camp in Jinguashih (金瓜石), Taipei County. The event, jointly organized by the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society and the Canadian Trade Office, will also honor the more than 4,300 Allied POWs who were held in 15 forced labor camps around Taiwan. A POW banquet will also be held on the evening of Nov. 17 at the Imperial Hotel on Linsen N Road at a cost of NT$1,000 per person. The Canadian Society is laying on buses for those interested in attending the Sunday service as there is no parking for private vehicles at the memorial site. Reservations for both the banquet and bus can be made by calling Crystal Hsu at the Canadian Trade Office on (02) 2544-3461. More details can be found by visiting www.powtaiwan.org.
■ sport
Kaohsiung ready for games
Kaohsiung meets the requirements to host the 2009 World Games and the city should have no problem staging the games, the head of the International World Games Association (IWGA) said yesterday. IWGA Chairman Ron Froehlich made the remarks after meeting Chi Cheng (紀政), an Olympic medalist who serves as the executive officer of the Kaohsiung Organizing Committee for the World Games. Froehlich confirmed that China lodged a protest with the International Olympic Games (IOC) against Kaohsiung's hosting the World Games, but he said that Chinese Taipei is an IOC member and that it meets the requirements for hosting the games. He expressed the hope that Kaohsiung will make every effort to make the games a success.
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