■ Kenyans win marathons
Runners from Kenya won the men's and women's events in the eighth Taroko International Marathon held on Saturday in Taroko Gorge National Park, Hualien County. Nicodemus Kiprono completed the 42.125km marathon in 2 hours 18 minutes to finish first in the men's event, while Taiwan's Tseng Yi-tsai (曾義財) placed third, finishing in 2 hours 36 minutes and 40 seconds, organizers said. Sally Jebichii Lagat finished first in the women's event, with a time of 2 hours and 50 minutes. The Taroko International Marathon, which was organized by the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association and sponsored by Taroko National Park Headquarters and the Hualien County Government, attracted thousands of local and foreign runners.
■ SOCIETY
Explosion traps two workers
Two workers were feared dead yesterday in an gas explosion at an underground construction site in Chiayi County yesterday afternoon. The men were working on a catchment channel that will allow water to pass between the Nanhua and the Tseng Wen reservoirs. The Chiayi County Fire Bureau said the explosion occurred at around 1pm near the boundary between Kaohsiung and Chiayi counties. The blast occurred inside the channel, the bureau said. Eyewitnesses accounts said the two workers drove a construction vehicle into the tunnel shortly before the explosion and then were trapped inside the tunnel, the bureau said. Rescue efforts were hampered by high levels of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide inside the tunnel. Rescue workers were working overnight to dissipate the gas and try to reach the trapped pair.
■ SOCIETY
Taiwanese win in Germany
Taiwanese taking part in the 2007 Nuremberg International Invention Exhibition have won 57 awards, breaking last year's record of 34 awards. Some 800 works by inventors representing 34 countries were entered in the four-day annual event in Nuremberg, Germany, that ended yesterday. The Taiwanese delegation was composed mainly of students. The 57 awards included 12 gold, 29 silver, 14 bronze and two special awards. Two junior-high school students won gold medals. Shen Che-wei (沈哲緯) won his for inventing an electric socket that can be turned on or off with the touch of a finger. Yang Cheng-fa (楊正發), received a gold for his aluminum foil package with a hidden straw. Hsieh Meng-han (謝孟翰) and Liu Hsing-hung (劉星宏), two students of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and Liu Yen-hung (劉彥宏), a student of Shih Chien University, jointly designed an engine that can burn a variety of fuels.
■ diplomacy
Taiwan to donate more cash
Taiwan will donate an additional US$200,000 to the Dominican Republic to help with relief operations after Hurricane Noel battered the Caribbean nation last week, inflicting a heavy toll on human lives and property, an official announced yesterday. Phoebe Yeh (葉非比), deputy spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the government had already donated US$25,000 on Wednesday to the Dominican Ministry of Agriculture with a view to helping reduce farmers' losses. Having evaluated the situation in the Dominican Republic, one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies, the government decided to donate an additional US$200,000 to the country to assist in relief operations, Yeh said.
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