■ AGRICULTURE
Egg prices to stabilize: COA
The rising prices of chicken and duck eggs are expected to stabilize and production levels to revert to normal once the weather warms, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said. The price of chicken eggs has increased to NT$29.5 per 600g, or Taiwan catty, the standard unit of measurement in traditional food markets, while the price of duck eggs reached NT$33 per catty, the council said in a statement on Friday. The council attributed the soaring prices to recent cold spells that have dampened egg production and rising international grain prices that have led to skyrocketing feed costs. Huang Ying-hao (黃英豪), chief of COA Animal Industry Development, said that if the temperature remained stable in the coming weeks, egg production should return to normal within a month and egg prices would stabilize.
■ ELECTION
Election Web site launched
The Government Information Office (GIO) has launched a Web site (www.gio.gov.tw/elect2008/) to provide information on the March 22 presidential election. Officials said that instead of relying on the nation's overseas offices to publicize the election, it had established a communication platform for international media by allowing them to register directly via the Internet. The GIO is hoping to learn about the actual needs of the international media and provide them with the best service, the officials said, adding that it welcomed international media to cover the election and witness the development of Taiwan's democratic politics. The Web site provides reference material and information and introduces journalists to services that will be available at the GIO international press center, the officials 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