■ POLITICS
DPP to expel two members
The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee yesterday passed a proposal by DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to expel two party members — former DPP legislator Hsu Jung-shu (?Q) and former Council of Agriculture minister Fan Chen-tsung (范振宗) — for attending a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum. “The Central Standing Committee members believe Hsu and Fan seriously violated party regulations and all members agreed to expel the two,” DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said. Cheng said the proposal would be sent to the party’s Central Review Committee for a final decision next Wednesday, when Fan and Hsu would be invited to defend themselves.
■ CULTURE
World chefs battle for title
Chefs from six regions around the world are scheduled to compete at the World Culinary Contest in Taipei next month. Eight teams will compete from Aug. 20 to Aug. 23 — two from Taiwan and one each from the US, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. One of Taiwan’s teams will represent northern Taiwan and the other southern Taiwan. Chang Hua-jiou (張華九), spokesperson of the contest’s organizing committee, said two teams would compete in the finals, during which the judges would prepare a case of ingredients that the teams must use in their dishes. The teams will not be told in advance what they are, Chang said. The ingredients will include flavors from both local and Western cuisine. The winning team will receive a NT$300,000 prize. Singapore won in 2007 and last year.
■ DEFENSE
Conscript numbers to drop
The Ministry of National Defense will decrease the annual number of conscripts between 2011 and 2014 as part of its plan to switch to a professional military with a starting salary of NT$30,000 for privates, ministry officials said on Tuesday. Department of Manpower Director Wang Chun-chiang (王春江) said that the minimum monthly salary would be guaranteed. In response to concerns about the funding that would be needed, the ministry said it would strike a balance between national defense and the nation’s finances to achieve optimum efficiency. The military has 275,000 service members. Under the troop reduction plan, this number will drop to 215,000. The goal of making the switch to a volunteer system is to establish an elite and high-quality military force, enhance combat prowess and boost military operational efficiency, Strategic Planning Department Director Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) said.
■ WEATHER
Tropical storm may form
A low-pressure system located near southern Taiwan may develop into a tropical storm, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The low-pressure system is about 1,300km to the southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and is moving northwest at a speed of 20kph. The bureau expected the system to develop into a tropical storm within the next two days because it has a very solid structure. The system is approaching the Bashi Channel and the southeast of Taiwan. The bureau forecast that the system could start affecting the weather nationwide on Friday. The southeast region and Hengchun Peninsula are expected to see the effects of the low-pressure system first.
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