■ ARTS
Dancer to perform in US
Taiwanese dancer, Sheu Fang-yi (�?y), will perform at the US’ oldest dance festival in Massachusetts from Wednesday to Aug. 3. Sheu was the principal dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Co and co-founded the modern dance troupe LAFA and Artists with Taiwanese choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava in May last year. Sheu was invited to perform at the festival, along with other dancers from image artist David Michalek’s video program Slow Dancing, which features 43 dancers and choreographers from around the world.
■ DIPLOMACY
County inks Nanjing deal
Taipei County signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s Nanjing City yesterday aimed at enhancing bilateral exchanges and cooperation. The MOU was signed by Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Nanjing Mayor Jiang Hongkun (蔣宏坤) at a ceremony that took place at the Nanjing City Hall, with about 30 officials from the two sides in attendance. The MOU said that officials from the two sides would swap visits annually, mainly for talks bolstering bilateral exchanges and cooperation. The MOU allows for closer exchanges and cooperation in the fields of business, trade, high-technology manufacturing, tourism, education, culture and sports, and it calls for closer investment cooperation between the two cities. Nanjing decided to give 3,000 willow seedlings and 100 plum seedlings to Taipei County as a token of friendship.
■ CRIME
MOFA to respect results
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) will respect the results of an investigation by the Costa Rican judiciary into the alleged misuse of funds donated by Taiwan for a housing construction project in the Central American country, ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said yesterday. Chen was responding to local media reports that Costa Rican judicial officials raided the offices of the Housing Ministry on Friday seizing documents related to Taiwan’s donations that had allegedly been diverted to other projects. The reports show that Costa Rican Housing Minister Fernando Zumbado was accused of diverting funds from the US$148,800 allocation by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration for building houses for the poor to other projects. Chen said that during Taiwan’s period of diplomatic relations with Costa Rica, all bilateral cooperation projects were negotiated by both governments, with the required funds being allocated legally. Costa Rica switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing on June 6 last year, ending a 63-year diplomatic relationship with Taiwan.
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