■SOCIETY
Disposable income rises
The average annual disposable household income in Taipei City stood at NT$1,287,800 (US$40,000) last year, topping all other cities and counties, the Taipei City Department of Budget, Accounting & Statistics said yesterday. The average disposable household income in Kaohsiung was NT$980,400 last year, while the figure for the rest of Taiwan stood at NT$923,900, an official said. Taipei City’s average increased 2 percent over that posted in 2006, the official said. The disposable income is income after taxes, bank interest and donation spending. Taipei families put aside an average of NT$324,100 each year as savings, or roughly 25 percent of their disposable household income, tallies compiled by the department showed.
■SOCIETY
AIT requests nominations
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange are soliciting faculty nominations for a Study of the US Institute program on “US National Security Policymaking in a Post 9/11 World.” The program will be held from mid-January to early March next year at an institution in the US. The Study of the US Institute is a six-week program for multinational groups of university faculty and professionals from outside the US. Approximately 18 foreign educators will be selected. The program aims to strengthen curriculums and improve the quality of teaching about the US at institutions outside the US. Mid-career university instructors with an academic interest in National Security issues are invited to apply. A program summary and application form can be found on the AIT Web site. The deadline is Oct. 5.
■JOURNALISM
UN policy panned
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders renewed its call on Tuesday for the UN to stop discriminating against Taiwanese journalists, who have again been barred from the annual session of the UN General Assembly. The UN has refused for years to issue press accreditation to Taiwanese journalists for the annual meeting on the grounds that Taiwan is not a UN member state. The policy continued for the 63rd session of the General Assembly that opened on Tuesday in New York. Taiwanese journalists used to be able to cover the annual World Health Assembly held every May in Geneva, but authorization was withdrawn in 2004 after pressure from China. In a letter sent recently to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard called on the UN to “do something for the Taiwanese media.” “We regard journalists as individuals who represent only the media they work for and not their country,” the letter said.
■HEALTH
Better dementia care vowed
Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) said yesterday the government was aware of the problems faced by the families of dementia sufferers and would provide better care to sufferers to ease this burden. Liao was speaking at a news conference sponsored by the Taiwan Alzheimer’s Disease Association in which the association announced a series of activities, including screening and counseling, in 18 cities and counties this weekend. Liao said Taiwan had around 130,000 Alzheimer’s patients over the age of 65 and around 20,000 aged under 65. Grand Justice Hsu Yu-hsiu (�?q) expressed the hope that the government would subsidize brain scans and include them in regular health checks to allow for early detection and treatment.
■EDUCATION
Students head for France
Nine Taiwanese students will leave for France to work as short-term Mandarin teaching assistants in France’s middle schools next month, the Ministry of Education’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations said yesterday. The plan is part of the first foreign language teaching assistant exchange program between Taiwan and France, the bureau said. The exchange program is meant to promote Mandarin learning in France and enhance French students’ understanding of Taiwanese culture, the bureau said. Eleven teaching assistants from France recently arrived in Taiwan.
■EDUCATION
Veteran journalist to visit
From Saturday to Sept. 27, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) is sponsoring the visit of Deborah Potter, a television journalist and journalism educator, who will conduct workshops, talks and professional exchanges in Taiwan on media issues and media best practices. She is currently the executive director of NewsLab, an organization in Washington, dedicated to excellence in television news reporting. Potter will speak at university journalism departments in Taipei and Kaohsiung, conduct workshops for working journalists and give a public speech in Taipei on difficult decisions in journalistic coverage called “Tough Calls: The Untold Story” on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 7:30pm at National Chengchi University’s downtown campus at 187 Jinhua Street. The program is free of charge and open to the public. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided. To register for the speech, log on to www.ait.org.tw/events/ToughCalls/. For more information, call AIT Public Affairs Section at (02) 2162-2315 or (02) 2162-2041.
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