■ DIPLOMACY
US supports Taiwan: AIT
The US will continue to support Taiwan in its quest for international space and dignity, American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young quoted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as saying during a reception yesterday to celebrate US Independence Day today. Young lauded Taiwan’s democratic development and said the coming year should see a strengthening of economic cooperation between Taiwan and the US, including productive Trade and Investment Framework Agreement talks in Taipei. He said Washington will continue to place high importance on providing Taipei “the confidence and means necessary to guarantee its own security.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊), Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) and National Security Council Security-General Su Chi (蘇起) attended the reception.
■TRANSPORTATION
TRTC marks gondola record
The Maokong Gondola is celebrating a new ridership record of 5 million today at the gondola’s Taipei Zoo station with a music concert at 6pm. The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said it would give out 6,000 mugs to passengers at 9am at the Taipei Zoo station. It will also issue souvenir Easy Cards at that station, MRT Taipei Main Station and MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station. The gondola system was launched last July, and has become one of the most popular attractions in the city. The 4km-long cable car system, which cost more than NT$1.3 billion (US$39.28 million), is the only one in the country that travels in a mountainous region along its entire route.
■CRIME
Toy plane crash sparks fire
A Taipei County man was arrested yesterday after his remote controlled model plane crashed into a high rise residential building in Sindian (新店) around 8am, causing a fire and six injuries, police said. The plane hit the 28th floor of the building, forcing the evacuation of 79 people. The fire was contained in 35 minutes, the local fire department said. Six people who sustained smoke inhalation injuries were taken to local hospitals and are now reportedly in stable condition. The suspect, surnamed Hsieh, was reportedly controlling the airplane from a riverside park about 500m away from the building. He was arrested for endangering the public.
■CRIME
Taiwanese convict returning
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed yesterday that Panama is repatriating a Taiwanese freighter captain convicted of manslaughter who was imprisoned in that country. Duanmu Wei-kai (端木惟鍇) is expected to return to Taiwan today. Duanmu was captain of the Panama-registered vessel HV Well Pescadores bound for Houston, Texas, when he abandoned two Dominican men at sea in 1993. He was tried and sentenced to 19 years and three months in 1995. The ministry said it had been negotiating with Panama for five years to secure his repatriation. Panama agreed to repatriate Duanmu on humanitarian concerns, the ministry said.
■CRIME
Corpse story confirmed
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) confirmed yesterday that police in Mauritius found two frozen corpses on a Taiwanese fishing boat on Sunday. Chen said the boat belonged to its Taiwanese captain and that one of the dead sailors was Chinese and the other Indonesian. He did not identify the captain, who is being detained along with three Taiwanese crewmembers by Mauritian police.
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