■FILM
‘KATZ Fun’ debuts in US
The Taiwan-made 3D animated cartoon KATZ Fun has made its debut on TV channels in the US and will air for three months in its first season, a manager of Bright Ideas Design said yesterday. “Season one of this cartoon series, comprising 13 episodes, will be broadcast on TV channels in 17 states in the US,” international marketing manager Erica Lee said. The company had spent four years and NT$60 million (US$1.88 million) to develop the cartoon. “KATZ Fun is the story of a mystical tiger named Katz who helps children develop their potential talents,” Lee said. Bright Ideas Design is a digital content development company in Taiwan. It stepped into the field of animated cartoons after cooperating with the National Palace Museum to combine art and humanities with digital technology to show the beauty of art. Lee said the company was also in final talks with potential buyers from Southeast Asia. Some representatives of TV channels from South Africa and Europe have also expressed interest in the animation, she said.
■EDUCATION
Ministry adds calligraphy
Chinese calligraphy lessons will be integrated into the curriculums for people training to be Mandarin teachers in elementary and junior high schools in Taiwan within three years, Yang Chang-yu (楊昌裕), director of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Elementary Education said yesterday. Yang said the ministry decided to require teachers to learn calligraphy skills because no higher education institution in Taiwan maintains a calligraphy department and few teachers know the skill, and therefore are unable to teach it to students. The ministry will also study the possibility of making Chinese calligraphy part of the school curricula, Yang said.
■DEFENSE
MND donates fighter jet
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday that it has donated a retired F-5 fighter jet to the Yanks Air Museum in Los Angeles. The museum held a ceremony to mark the donation of the aircraft, with the chief of the nation’s Defense Mission to the US, Major General Po Hung-hui (伯鴻輝), representing the MND at the ceremony. In December 2008 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the MND to donate a retired combat aircraft and two retired jet engines to the museum. The aircraft was freshly painted before leaving Taitung air base for the US. The fighter, with the two engines, left Keelung in November and arrived in Los Angeles in January, the MND said.
■TRAVEL
Kaohsiung welcomes ship
The luxury cruise liner Europa moored in Kaohsiung Harbor yesterday, bringing more than 300 tourists — mostly from Germany. Welcomed by drummers on the wharf, the 338 tourists disembarked for a one-day tour of the city. Tony Wu (巫宗霖), director of the Tourist Service Center at Kaohsiung International Airport, said the government’s goal was to attract more tourists like these to stay in the country for more than one day. The global market for ocean cruises is growing and seems to have been unaffected by the global financial crisis, Wu said. Last year, Taiwan hosted more than 30 liners, each of which had thousands of passengers on board, he said. To persuade cruise operators to put Taiwan on their itineraries, the Tourism Bureau has been promoting Taiwan overseas and offers mooring discounts, he said. Each tourist on the Europa spent an average of around NT$2,000 in Kaohsiung, he said.
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