■ EVENTS
Autistic musicians to perform
People will get a chance to enjoy the sounds of talented autistic musicians from around the nation in a concert at Taipei Main Station on Jan. 19. The "Resplendent Starlight" concert, sponsored by the Foundation for Autistic Children and Adults in Taiwan, will be held at the station's performance hall. The concert will feature clarinet, drum troupe, choir and taiko drum performances, among others. Also performing will be the autistic pianist duo of Concern For Life Award-winner Lee Shang-hsuen (李尚軒) and Chuang Tien-yue (莊天岳). The concerts will be free of charge and are part of the Taiwan Railway Administration's policy of promoting public interest activities. A total of 300 free tickets for the concert are now available at the Taipei Main Station service counter.
■ BUSINESS
CEPD mulls airport project
The government is considering setting up a special area at Taoyuan International Airport for transiting foreign businesspeople, where they could meet Taiwanese partners without actually entering Taiwan. Officials at the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said that a feasibility report submitted by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council at the request of the CEPD favored the establishment of such an area. The report said the special area should have an exhibition room, a leisure area, a shopping area, a beauty parlor and facilities for speedy physical checkups. CEPD officials said they would initiate a pilot project at Taoyuan Airport to accommodate foreign businesspeople whose tight schedules might not permit them to enter Taiwan for a short stopover.
■ SOCIETY
CLA calls for safety
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) on Friday called on high-rise window cleaning companies to focus on safety to prevent further deaths. Lin Chin-chi (林進基), director of the CLA's Department of Labor Inspection, said that between 2000 and the end of last year, nine mishaps involving window cleaning pulley systems had occurred in Taiwan, resulting in 11 deaths. To prevent further tragedies, Lin urged companies to implement certification programs that ensure that their equipment meets standards and to hold regular inspections of equipment after installation at cleaning projects. He called on companies to notify the local CLA labor inspection office of the time and place of their work projects prior to beginning work and to provide all necessary safety equipment and gear to workers.
■ HEALTH
DOH issues warning
Taiwanese traveling to Southeast Asian countries should guard against mosquito bites after a recent increase in Chikungunya fever cases, a Department of Health (DOH) official said. Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director Lin Ting (林頂) said the nation first reported the relatively rare viral fever in 2006, when a student from Singapore was found to be carrying the virus. Three cases were reported last year, two of which, involving an Indonesia maid and a man returning to Taiwan to visit family members, were discovered in the latter half of last month. Taipei County health officials said the DOH notified them on Thursday that the Indonesian maid was suffering from Chikungunya fever and immediately rushed to her employer's residence to take samples from the home and spray pesticides.
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