■ CULTURE
Hakka book released
Fast Reads About Hakkas in Taiwan (快讀台灣客家), an easy-reading book on history, economic life, culture, society, literature and arts and recent developments was launched yesterday in Taipei. “There have been many books published about Taiwan and about Taiwanese Hakkas — but not many people read them,” Council for Hakka Affairs Chairman Lee Yung-teh (李永得) said at the book launch. “When I picked up one of the books, I realized it’s not because people don’t care, rather, it’s because these books are too hard to read — they made me sleepy.” To allow more people understand the Hakkas in Taiwan, the council then commissioned the publishing of the book. “Hakkas, though they have made very important contributions to Taiwan’s history, are often overlooked,” said Tai Pao-tsun (戴寶村), a Taiwanese history professor at National Chengchi University.
■ EDUCATION
Universities to be merged
National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) and National Hualien University of Education (NHUE), both located in Hualien County, will soon be merged, NDHU president Hwang Wen-shu (黃文樞) said on Sunday. After years of negotiations, Hwang said, both universities decided recently that the name of the merged university will be National Dong Hwa University, and that more than 3,000 faculty members and students of NHUE will be relocated to the campus of NDHU. Hwang estimated that the two universities would begin proceedings related to the merger in the second half of this year, as early as possible. Wang Chun-chuan (王俊權), deputy director of the Department of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, said that the ministry will offer a total NT$2.5 billion in phased amounts for the merger of the two universities and the expansion of hardware facilities.
■ CRIME
Woman arrested with seals
A woman has been arrested for attempting to smuggle more than 100 ivory seals into Taiwan, customs officials reported yesterday. The officials said the woman, surnamed Huang, who has her household registration in Taipei City but resides in South Africa, arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport via Hong Kong earlier in the day. The airport’s X-ray machine detected secret compartments in woodcarvings she had in her luggage, which contained 102 ivory seals weighing over 5.8kg. According to Huang, a friend had asked her to bring the wood carvings into Taiwan and she professed to have no idea that ivory seals were hidden within them. Officials said Huang traveled from Malawi to South Africa before boarding the plane for Taiwan.
■ HEALTH
Contraceptive under scrutiny
The controversial Ortho Evra birth control patch, marketed in Taiwan as the Evra Transdermal Patch, may have claimed its first victim. Three Taipei City councilors held a press conference Monday, calling on drug administration authorities to investigate a case involving a 33-year-old woman who suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma after using Evra contraceptive patches. Councilor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) said the victim, identified by the surname Lee, was a product designer in Taipei’s Neihu Technology Park who had no previous history of illness. She was rushed to the Armed Forces General Hospital on Jan. 21 after suffering a stroke but has never regained consciousness. Her national health insurance record shows that the contraceptive patches were purchased without a doctor’s prescription.
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