■SOCIETY
Pupils stage Beijing opera
A group of Taipei American School students is scheduled to perform a traditional Chinese opera at the National Taiwanese College of Performing Arts at 2pm today. The students, who are educated in the American system, recently attended the college’s summer program on the art of Beijing opera. Over the course of the summer, they studied how Chinese opera combines drama, music, dance, kung fu, fine arts and sculpture. They also learned some Beijing opera skills and dance techniques. This afternoon’s program will include performances with traditional songs, such as Shaking the Money Tree (搖錢樹) and Golden Phoenix (金鳳凰).
■DIPLOMACY
Funds donated to Honduras
Taiwan has donated US$2.5 million to Honduras to fund development projects in the nation’s central American ally, Taiwan’s Ambassador to Honduras Lai Chien-chung (賴建中) told reporters by phone from Tegucigalpa on Thursday. Lai said the donation would be used to establish electricity supply systems, promote public health education, boost local production and improve tap water sanitation and drainage systems in rural areas. The donation is part of Taiwan’s bilateral cooperation program, he said. On receiving the donation on Wednesday, Honduran International Cooperation Minister Karen Zelaya said that since 2006, Taiwan and Honduras have cooperated on 121 programs to promote the development of rural areas in Honduras, 34 of which have been completed, a report from Honduras-based Radio America said. A donation of more than US$370,000 to Honduras from Taiwan in June was used to establish tap water systems in rural areas.
■HEALTH
Kaohsiung mooncakes safe
All samples of mooncake fillings recently tested by the Kaohsiung City Government’s Department of Health were found to meet the city’s food safety standards, the department said yesterday. The department carried out spot tests at mooncake retail outlets and factories around the city from July 22 to July 24, with 60 samples tested. None of the samples were found to contain excess amounts of preservatives or other additives, said the department, which added that it would conduct a second series of tests to ensure that mooncake and filling producers are abiding by the city’s food sanitation regulations. Mooncakes are a Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 14 this year.
■SOCIETY
Two-way bike route planned
The Tainan County Government plans to build a two-way bicycle route along a 39km stretch of the No. 1 provincial highway to promote local tourism and bicycle use. County government official Huang Chun-jung (黃浚榮), who is in charge of the plan, told reporters yesterday that the bicycle trails would be built at a cost of NT$190 million (US$6.1 million) along both sides of the No. 1 highway, and that the central government had provided an initial budget of NT$63 million for the first stage of the project. Huang said the bicycle route would link two railway stations in Tainan County — Houbi (後壁) in the north and Sinshih (新市) in the south — and have a total length of 77.4km. He said construction would begin by the end of the year, and that the county government was applying for a second budget outlay of NT$50 million from the Ministry of the Interior to build rest stops, service stations, parking lots and leisure facilities along the paths.
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