■ DIPLOMACY
Council to go international
The Council of Indigenous Peoples will establish an international section to strengthen exchanges with other countries after a legislative committee approved legal revisions to a decree governing the council’s structure yesterday. The draft amendments will proceed to the plenary legislative session without further negotiations, but the council is required to amend the Organic Law of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (行政院原住民委員會組織條例) within two months to reflect the change. The legislature’s Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee approved draft amendments to the Implementation Regulations of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, which would add an international affairs section to the department of planning and reduce the size of the department of education and culture.
■ SOCIETY
Haituan to host festival
The Bunun’s traditional rite of passage, the “ear shooting festival,” will be held in Haituan Township (海端), Taitung County, on Friday and Saturday. Haituan Mayor Huang Chun-bau (黃春寶) said the festival will provide a taste of traditional Bunun culture. The Bunun are the fourth-largest Aboriginal tribe, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the country’s indigenous population. The annual “ear shooting festival,” which is known as Mala-ta-ngia in Bunun, gets its name from a ritual in which the men display their archery skills by shooting at the ears of river deer, mountain goats, boars and other wild animals caught in a hunt held prior to the festival. The village will also have an exhibition of its special agricultural products and traditional Bunun handicrafts, Huang said.
■ POLITICS
Mayer vows cooperation
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) vowed yesterday to do her best to cooperate in preparations for a state banquet in her city on May 20 hosted by president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) following his inauguration. Chen made the remarks during a news conference held at the Kaohsiung City Government after National Police Agency Director-General Hou You-yi (侯友宜) inspected security measures in the city. Extending her thanks for Ma’s decision to host the state banquet in Kaohsiung, Chen said his decision showed his recognition of the city’s development. “The Kaohsiung City Government will offer all necessary assistance to help with the planned state banquet,” she said. After the inauguration in Taipei, Ma will take the high speed railway to Kaohsiung City along with a group of foreign dignitaries, and then tour the city and attend the banquet.
■ POLITICS
TSU to reregister members
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is calling on all party members to reregister. TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) issued some 20,000 copies of an open letter to party members, calling on them to register again with the party, TSU spokeswoman Chou Mei-li (周美里) said yesterday. Huang wrote that the TSU “has transformed itself into a ‘center-left’ party, has put aside the independence issue and aims to take care of people from the medium and low-echelons of society.” The TSU will be a “quality opposition party” that will conduct rational dialogue, engage in civic politics and pursue justice and fairness as a faithful opposition party, Chou said. She said a new lineup of the TSU leadership is expected to be shaped by the end of next month. She said there are about 15,000 TSU members nationwide, but added that the number might drop after the registration is complete.
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