■LEGISLATION
KMT wants special session
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is prepared to issue a proposal to hold a special legislative session in case four government restructuring bills fail to clear the legislature by the end of its current session on Tuesday, a KMT lawmaker said yesterday. Caucus whip Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) attaches great importance to the bills, which are crucial for the implementation of a plan to downsize the government’s structure on Jan. 1, 2011. Lu said that chances are high for a special session to be held in light of the urgency of the bills, including a proposed amendment to the Executive Yuan’s Organic Law to reduce the number of ministries and other Cabinet agencies from 37 to 29. However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opposition is likely to stall their progress. DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said that her party is in favor of government downsizing, but was against the versions of the bills proposed by the KMT, because they would result in an expansion, rather than reduction, of the government’s structure. The DPP does not have a position on whether a special session should be held, she said.
■CONSTRUCTION
Airport capacity to double
Officials said yesterday that when the Taichung Airport expansion project is completed in 2012, it will more than double the airport’s passenger capacity. The expansion will add a second terminal to Taichung Airport, allowing passengers on domestic and international flights to be channeled through separate terminals, officials at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau said at a news briefing yesterday. The international terminal will be equipped with five air bridges, the officials said. The new facilities are expected to offer more convenient services to passengers and will expand the airport’s capacity to 1.35 million passengers per year, nearly triple the 460,000 passengers it can handle at present. Once the expansion project, which will cost an estimated NT$3.1 billion (US$97 million), is completed, the airport’s formal name will change to “Central Taiwan International Airport.”
■EVENTS
Fenton to perform
Composer George Fenton has been invited to Taiwan to lead the National Symphony Orchestra in two concert performances of The Blue Planet. The concert will feature music from the Emmy Award-winning soundtrack Fenton composed for the documentary series The Blue Planet, a joint production of the BBC and the Discovery Channel. A spokeswoman for the concert’s organizer, National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center, said The Blue Planet creates a grand soundscape that has enthralled audiences around the globe. The concerts will be held on March 5 and March 6 at the National Concert Hall.
■OPEN CALL
US offers residencies
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Public Affairs Section is calling for applications for the 2010 Study of the US Institute programs. The programs are designed for mid-career university-level educators and each residency will typically last six weeks and take place between mid-June and early August next year, AIT said. More information can be found at exchanges.state.gov/academicexchanges/scholars.html or by contacting the American Cultural Center Office at (02) 2723-3959, ext. 224 for details. Applications may be sent by e-mail to application@mail.ait.org.tw.
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