■SOCIETY
Group to visit from US
A delegation of more than 1,000 members of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in New York is slated to visit Taiwan to attend the Double Ten Day celebrations. The delegation will be the largest from the association to visit for the national day activities in the last eight years. Kenneth Liao (廖港民), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, expressed his appreciation on Friday for the association’s strong show of support for Taiwan, during a flag-presentation ceremony for the delegation held at the association’s headquarters. Speaking at the ceremony, association president Justin Yu (于金山) said the delegation did not include large numbers of Taiwanese-Americans in the greater New York area who also intended to return to Taiwan on their own for the celebrations. He said such a high level of support had rarely been seen during the Democratic Progressive Party administration.
■SPORTS
Kaohsiung arena finished
Kaohsiung inaugurated its new sports stadium yesterday in preparation for the 2009 World Games. Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said the dome-shaped arena, a multipurpose complex with a seating capacity of 15,000, took four years to complete. The central and city governments spent NT$1.5 billion (US$46.8 million), while the Kaohsiung Arena Development Corp, an affiliate of the Kaohsiung-based China Steel Corp, built the stadium at a total cost of approximately NT$7.9 billion. In addition to sports competitions, the stadium can be used as a venue for concerts and art exhibitions. Next year’s World Games will be held from July 16 to 26. The dance sports and gymnastics competitions will be held at the Kaohsiung Arena.
■HEALTH
Tainted bookends not here
The lead-tainted Harry Potter bookends recalled recently by a US importer are not sold in Taiwan, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection said yesterday. However, individuals who have bought similar products are advised to report them, the bureau said in a statement. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on Tuesday in cooperation with the importer, Giftco Inc, after discovering that the paint on the bookends contained excessive lead. The bookends, in the shape of characters from the Harry Potter book series, were manufactured in Hong Kong and sold at elementary school fundraising events and discount and dollar stores in the US from June 2004 to January 2006.
■HEALTH
Kids lack balanced diets
Only 0.6 percent of elementary school students nationwide eat nutritionally balanced dinners. Kids are not getting enough fruits and vegetables, a survey conducted by Taipei Medical University Hospital showed. The survey, which interviewed 1,016 third to sixth grade students at nine schools countrywide this month, found that less than 30 percent of respondents ate either vegetables or fruit with dinner each day. Children should eat at least two servings of fruit, two servings of vegetables, four servings of grains and three servings of meat, eggs, or fish each day, said Su Hsiu-yueh (蘇秀悅), chief nutritionist at the hospital. Below-average academic performance may be related to poor nutrition, Su said, as the survey shows that more than 53 percent of respondents with low school grade eat fast food for dinner at least once a week, Su said.
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