■ POLITICS
Lien leads think tank to PRC
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) will lead a delegation of members of the party’s think tank to the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum in China in December, KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said yesterday. Lien will head the delegation as the chairman of the National Policy Foundation, the KMT’s think tank, and discuss economic issues with CCP think tank members, Wu told a media gathering at KMT headquarters in Taipei. The KMT-CCP forum was created in April 2005 when Lien visited China. The forum serves as a platform for the two parties to discuss cross-strait issues. Wu, who underwent an arterial stent implant last week because of coronary heart disease, said he had already visited China twice this year and met with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and that he had no further plans to visit China this year.
■ CULTURE
Festive reopening planned
Part of Anhe Road in Taipei City will be closed to traffic tomorrow amid activities marking the reopening of Eslite bookstore’s flagship outlet on Dunhua S Road. Taipei City’s Information and Tourism Department will promote the distinct culture of the city’s eastern district with music performances and outdoor movie screenings starting at 2pm in front of the bookstore. Wang Shih-chia (王施佳), a division chief at the department, said the bookstore has become one of the city’s most popular attractions and cultural landmarks for many foreign tourists. Wang said the department will be offering free coffee and popcorn. German director Wim Wenders’ movie Lisbon Story will be screened at 7pm.
■ TOURISM
Hualien hotels fully booked
Most hotel owners in the Hualien area said their rooms are fully booked from today through Sunday, the three-day weekend that begins with Double Ten celebrations today. They said that even private tourist accommodation in the city and county were fully booked for the weekend, mainly because of the Double Ten gala night festivities at Hualien Stadium tonight. The hotel owners said all train tickets to and from Hualien until Sunday have been sold out, leaving many of their guests without transportation to go to Hualien or return home. Entry to the Double Ten festivities is free. The public can enter the stadium from 4:30pm. The lineup of performers includes television program hosts, well-known singers and dancers, as well as traditional dancing and singing by Aboriginal tribes from Hualien.
■ HEALTH
Dengue patient rewarded
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday announced an imported case of dengue fever that had been reported to the CDC by the patient himself. The man came down with fever and joint and muscle pain soon after his return from a trip to Vietnam last Friday, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ting (林頂) said. Suspecting that he may have contracted dengue fever, the man informed the CDC of his symptoms through the CDC’s online self-notification system on Tuesday. Tests confirmed that he did have dengue fever, Lin said. The man will be awarded NT$2,500 as part of the center’s measures to encourage people to report infectious disease cases, the CDC said. CDC statistics show that 375 cases of dengue fever have been recorded in the country so far this year, 209 of which were indigenous cases and 166 imported. Of the total number of cases, 185 occurred since the start of the summer.
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