■DIPLOMACY
Sending ships not easy
Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) yesterday said that it would be a great challenge for Taiwan to send a warship to protect Taiwanese ships from Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden. As Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the nations along the sea lanes that use the Gulf of Aden and Taiwan’s supply ship is now undergoing regular maintenance, Chen said: “It will be a challenge for the Navy’s vessels to carry out such a mission.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now in discussions with countries such as the US and EU nations about the possibility of cooperating and more than 40 Navy vessels from other countries are ready to help ships in the area if it becomes necessary. As such, Chen yesterday said his ministry would assess whether there was really the need for Taiwan to send warships to the area.
■DIPLOMACY
Wang says no US meetings
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said yesterday that the delegation that would attend US president-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony on Tuesday would not meet with US government officials during the trip. Taiwan will have three separate groups of well-wishers. In response to concerns about the tickets to the inauguration ceremony, Wang, who will lead the government delegation, said yesterday that members of all three delegations would have tickets. When asked to comment on the bodyguards assigned by the National Security Bureau to escort former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Wang said the arrangement was made according to the Preferential Treatment to Retired Presidents and Vice Presidents (卸任總統副總統禮遇條例).
■HEALTH
Dengue found in Taoyuan
Taoyuan County health authorities yesterday confirmed two cases of dengue fever imported by a Taiwanese traveler and an Indonesian worker. The county government’s health bureau said the first case involved a 36-year-old Taiwanese woman who visited Thailand with her family from Dec. 27 to Jan. 1. The woman developed suspected dengue fever symptoms, including a fever and muscle and joint pain, before being sent to a hospital for treatment on Jan 13. The hospital reported the suspected infection the next day to the county’s health bureau, which confirmed the illness on Jan. 15. The Indonesian worker was found to have dengue fever during a health check when entering Taiwan. He returned to Indonesia on Jan. 14. Taoyuan County health bureau chief Wu Cheng-fang (吳成方) urged the public, particularly travelers returning from Southeast Asian countries, to be alert for the disease if they develop headaches behind the eyes and pain in their joints.
■AVIATION
Birds hard to avoid: official
It is difficult for planes to completely avoid the risk of having birds sucked into their engines, a flight safety official said on Friday after a commercial jetliner was crippled by birds in New York. The official said there were midair encounters with birds every year at Taiwan’s 23 military, civilian and military-civilian airports. In 2007, there were an estimated 163 incidents of birds striking aircraft in Taiwan, with 27 aircraft, or 16.56 percent of those hit, suffering damage. Airports in Taiwan usually use nets, laser guns and explosive gas devices to keep birds away.
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