Tamkang University in Tamsui (淡水), Taipei County, yesterday became the first university in the world to be granted “international safe school” status — a designation aimed at enhancing safety awareness and education — by a WHO-affiliated organization.
Max Vosskuhler, chairman of the International Safe Schools Committee, said at a designation ceremony in Taipei yesterday that Tamkang was the world’s first university to have “put the package of safety and health together.”
The International Safe Schools Designation Program is a project of the Peaceful Resources Center, an Affiliate Safe Community Support Center for the WHO’s Collaborating Center on Community Safety Promotion.
“This university has led the way in becoming the first international safe school with a persistent commitment to its students, faculty and everybody in their community to promote safety,” he said.
Vosskuhler said the university had met all seven requirements during the committee’s evaluation, including having a school committee responsible for making decisions for safety at the school, implementing safety policies for all groups at the university and a commitment to sharing the school’s experience with local, national and international schools.
“Signing the agreement [between the university and the committee] does not mean that a school is 100 percent safe,” he said. “[The recognition] signifies commitment of the organization to become safer.”
Figures provided by the university show some 50 schools worldwide have won international safe school status or are being reviewed by the International Safe Schools Committee.
Lee Ming-hsien (李明憲), a professor at National Dong Hwa University who plays a key role in the Taiwan International Safe Schools Promotion Center, said Vosskuhler and other International Safe Schools Committee members would over the next few days inspect Taiwanese primary and junior high schools that had applied for the designation.
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