LABOR
MECO Taichung has moved
The Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) announced last week that its Taichung office, including its Labor and OWWA sections, have relocated into one office in the Cathay Insurance Building. The new address is: MECO-Taichung, Rm 2A 4F, 239 Minchuan Rd, West District, Taichung City. The phone numbers are: MECO-Taichung (04)2302-9080~1; MECO-Labor: (04)2302-9089 and MECO-OWWA: (04)2302-9093. MECO is reminding all Filipinos who wish to participate in next year’s general elections that they must register with MECO before Aug. 31. To register for overseas absentee voting, Filipinos must bring with them their passport and one photocopy of the passport data page or a photocopy of the passport data page and their Alien Resident Certificate.
SOCIETY
France honoring TES head
The Taipei European School (TES) announced that chief executive officer (CEO) John Nixon has been appointed Chevalier (“Knight”) of the French National Order of Merit (l’ordre national du Merite) for his outstanding service in education and his support and contributions to the French community in Taiwan. Nixon will receive the award on March 20 from Patrick Bonneville, director of the French Institute in Taipei. France’s ordre national du Merite is an order of chivalry founded in December 1963 by then French president Charles de Gaulle and the awards are given by the president. Nixon was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2007 in recognition of his services to education in Taiwan. He has been the CEO for TES since 2000.
CHARITY
Book sale rescheduled
After being rained out on Saturday, Taipei American School’s (TAS) Orphanage Club rescheduled its annual book sale for this Saturday from 10am to 5pm in the lobby and forecourt of the school. Thousands of books will be on offer, from novels, mysteries, biographies and travel books to cookbooks, children’s fiction and English-teaching books. Books in Chinese and other languages will also be available, as well as magazines and games. Money raised from the sale will provide funding for orphans and other needy children in Taiwan and abroad. TAS is located at 800 Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 6, in Tianmu (天母).
SOCIETY
TAS Spring Fair coming soon
TAS’ annual PTA Spring Fair will be held on Saturday, March 21, from 10am to 3pm. There will be more than 80 booths and a handful of food stalls catered by five-star hotels and restaurants. There will be live entertainment by several local choirs and dance studios in the Tianmu area, event chairwoman Debbie Chen said. Fairgoers will also have the chance to see a special dance performance by a group of Nantou County elementary students who have been receiving online English language tutoring from several PTA volunteers, she said. The fair will also feature a car show, cultural vendors, a rummage sale, farmer’s market, student-run game booths and a grand raffle with more than 200 prizes, Chen said. The fair is open to everyone and admission is NT$10. For more information, call (02)2873-9900 ext 363 or Debbie at 0926-900-590.
STAFF WRITER
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