■ HEALTH
Airplane smoker fined
A woman will be fined for smoking in an airplane, Kaohsiung health officials said yesterday. The woman has become the first local citizen to be fined for inflight smoking after an amended Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) went into effect on Sunday, banning smoking in most indoor public areas and workplaces. The officials said the woman, identified only by her surname Chen, smoked in the restroom of a China Airlines (中華航空) plane on its way to Kaohsiung City from Hong Kong on Wednesday night. The cigarette smoke activated the smoke detector in the restroom and alarms on the plane. The woman was stopped by a crew member who knocked on the restroom door.
■ DIPLOMACY
Taiwan donates US$8m
Taiwan has made a final payment of US$8 million to Panama in keeping with a promise to help the diplomatic ally procure a helicopter for emergency relief and anti-crime operations, the Taiwan embassy in Panama said yesterday. The payment was handed over by Taiwan Ambassador to Panama Simon Ko (柯森耀) to Panamanian Interior and Justice Minister Dilio Arcia on Wednesday. Ko said that the helicopter procurement, at a price of approximately US$10 million, was one of the bilateral cooperation projects between Taiwan and Panama. Taiwan had previously made a payment of US$2 million to purchase the aircraft, Ko said. Arcia, meanwhile, said the helicopter would be of great help in the work to improve public order in Panama and to provide emergency assistance to people living in remote areas. He also expressed gratitude to Taiwan for helping to fund the construction of a hospital in the eastern part of Panama Province and for sending medical missions to the country to provide free medical services on many occasions.
■ CRIME
Molesting teacher fined
The Taichung District Court ruled on Wednesday that a municipal elementary school and one of its teachers who sexually molested four of his students must pay them NT$20.02 million (US$601,000) in damages. The teacher is being held at a detention center. He was sentenced to 163 years and 10 months in prison on Aug. 28 last year on charges of sexually molesting the four students 29 times from 2007 to last year. The Humanistic Education Foundation said it felt that the school should also be held responsible for the teacher’s misconduct, and the foundation filed a class action on behalf of the students to seek compensation. In its ruling on Wednesday, Taichung District Court ordered the school and the teacher to pay the four students NT$20.02 million to cover the cost of psychological therapy and compensate them for the mental distress they suffered. The school said it would appeal the case. The parents of the four students said they felt the city government should also be held partly responsible.
■ CRIME
UK bans travelers’ food
Taiwan said yesterday the UK’s HM Revenue and Customs has recently announced that all travelers are stricly prohibited from bringing milk and meat-based food products into the country, whether they are fresh, dried, cured, cooked, frozen, powdered, canned or vacuum packed. Products made with lard, such as stick cubes containing pieces of meat, instant noodles and moon cakes, are also restricted, the Bureau of Consular Affairs said. All illegal products will be seized and destroyed by customs. Violators could also face prosecution or a fine.
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