■ TRAVEL
Taiwanese getting caught
More Taiwanese have been caught attempting to bring prohibited items into or out of Macau and Hong Kong than people from any other country in the region so far this year, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said yesterday. Many of the Taiwanese caught with prohibited items, including pepper spray, stun guns and tasers, were detained or charged according to local laws, the foundation said. The SEF, a semi-official organization set up by the government to handle technical and business matters with China in the absence of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries, made the announcement to urge Taiwan to familiarize themselves with the customs laws and regulations of the two Special Administrative Regions before traveling there.
■ DIPLOMACY
Support for WHO bid
Several Taiwanese expatriate groups will hold a series of activities in London on Sunday to solicit support for Taiwan’s bid to enter the WHO. Lord Faulkner, co-chairman of the British-Taiwan Parliamentary Group, a sub-group in Britain’s parliament, will be among those attending the activities, which will be held at Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park. Faulkner and his parliamentary group have consistently supported Taiwan’s bid to enter international organizations, including the UN and WHO. Lee Hung-yao (李宏耀), secretary-general of the European Federation of Taiwan Health Alliance, said Taiwan’s membership in the health body was long overdue. This year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will ask the country’s diplomatic allies to file both membership and observer status applications at this year’s annual WHA meeting, which opens on May 19.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Eat less, save the planet
With World Earth Day on April 22, Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) called on Taiwanese to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by not overeating. If people do not overeat, less gas and electricity will be consumed and lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions will be produced, which would help minimize global warming, Yang said. Statistics show that carbon dioxide emissions in Taiwan average 12 tonnes per person per year, about three times the average global figure, said Wang Mao-song (王茂松), director of Kaohsiung County’s Environmental Protection Bureau. Figures also show that 2.8 million pairs of disposable chopsticks are used in Taiwan every day, the equivalent of 540 hectares of bamboo forest, he said.
■ ENVIRONMENT
CEPD talks conservation
The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) approved a four-year, NT$14.88 billion (US$491 million) project on Monday aimed at improving conservation at national parks. The project, presented by the Ministry of the Interior, will seek to improve the management of national parks, establish an ecological corridor through the Central Mountain Range and establish guidelines for the conservation of maritime resources. “In the long term, the ministry hopes that the areas in the country designated for nature conservation will be increased to 20 percent of the country’s total area and that 8 percent of the coastline will gradually be transformed into maritime national parks,” a ministry official said. The ministry will also attempt to reinforce environmental education, establish cooperation mechanisms with other organizations around the world and dedicate more effort to nature conservation, the official 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