■ CRIME
Domestic violence increases
There was a sharp increase in the number of cases of domestic violence reported to the police in the first quarter of this year, Ministry of the Interior statistics show. A total of 22,940 cases were recorded during the period, a 20.8 percent year-on-year increase. About 59 percent of the cases or 13,480, involved couples that were either married or cohabiting. This was followed by juvenile abuse, with 18 percent or 4,130 cases and abuse of seniors, with 3.4 percent or 770 cases. More than 76 percent (22,200) of the victims were female, with those in the 30 to 50 age bracket most at risk, accounting for 9,600 cases. About 20,700 assailants were involved, nearly 82 percent of them male. The ministry attributed the rapid increase in the number of domestic violence cases to unstable family relationships subject to increased social and economic pressure as well as a change in traditional beliefs that frown on revealing family conflicts.
■ DIPLOMACY
Taiwan attends WHA
Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) toured the Palais des Nations on Saturday after arriving in Geneva, where he will attend the annual WHO meeting. This is the second consecutive year Taiwan has been invited to attend the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer. The WHA opens today and runs through Saturday. Just as last year, Taiwan’s delegation will be seated in the last row of seats, along with associate members Puerto Rico, the Tokelau Islands and observers. Yang is scheduled to deliver a five-minute speech at the WHA plenary session tomorrow.
■ HEALTH
Lack of recognition cited
A group of multiple sclerosis (MS) patient advocates yesterday urged the government to address the fact that many MS patients are not recognized by the national health insurance system. Angelina Lei (雷蕾), the executive director of the Multiple Sclerosis Association, said Taiwan has an estimated 1,500 MS patients but due to strict standards imposed by the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI), only about 950 of them are recognized. Lei said that people must have at least two episodes before the bureau issues them a “catastrophic illness card,” entitling patients to apply for a disability certificate. “The problem is that about 2 percent of MS patients become fully paralyzed after the first episode. Some others do not experience another episode for many years because they are on a strict medication regimen,” Lei said. Other patients have gone unrecognized because when the BNHI upgraded to the current IC card system their medical histories were not entered into the database, she said.
■ CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Biotech group to visit
A Chinese delegation will attend a conference on biotechnology and medical equipment in Taipei next week. Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙), chairman of the Development Center for Biotechnology, said He Luli (何魯麗), former vice chairwoman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, will lead the 100-member delegation attending the two-day conference that opens May 25. It will be the highest-level medical exchange ever, Lee said, with representatives from several health ministries and agencies. “Taiwan’s bottleneck in developing its biotech industry is its limited market and the Chinese market can serve as a platform for Taiwan’s biotech sector to make inroads into the international market,” Lee 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