■CRIME
Police begin crackdown
Public places providing “special entertainment services,” such as KTV lounges, massage parlors, pubs and video game arcades, were affected yesterday by a nationwide police crackdown on gangster activity. Many of these businesses in the Taipei and Kaohsiung metropolitan areas were found to have far fewer customers than usual during surprise early morning checks by police, local police said. The checks were part of a crackdown launched by the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday in an attempt to improve social order in the wake of recent public outrage at alleged police involvement in gang-related activities. The Kaohsiung City Police Bureau said its officers had raided 309 special businesses notorious as gangster hangouts, taking into custody more than 80 people suspected of violence or drug-related crime.
■DIPLOMACY
Wang plans ECFA review
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said the Legislative Yuan has the freedom to decide what form it would use to review the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) after it is signed. Under the Constitution, the legislature could decide whether to review it article by article, Wang said, adding that lawmakers can seek to revise the content of the pact during the review. Wang said he will discuss the matter with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義). On Thursday evening, Wang said the legislature, which went into recess on Tuesday, might hold a provisional session next month to review the ECFA. The legislature might also hold another extra session in August if the legislature fails to complete the review next month, he added. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has hoped to ink the agreement with China this month, with both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Wu having said that a signed ECFA would be subject to a legislative review before the agreement takes effect.
■HEALTH
Protein changes harm mice
A common type of protein modification may cause health problems, including osteoporosis and hair loss, according to the results of an international study led by Taiwanese scientists. The research, conducted on mice, reveals that defective palmitoylation resulted in hair loss, severe osteoporosis, cachexia, systemic amyloidosis and early death in the animals, Academia Sinica said in a statement released yesterday. Palmitoylation is a common protein modification that involves the addition of palmitate, a fatty acid, to proteins. The study found the defective palmitoylation was caused by a mutation in the Zdhhc13 gene. The study was published in the June 10 edition of international scientific journal PLoS Genetics.
■TOURISM
Alishan first-aid ready
The Department of Health (DOH) said it has recently set up two first-aid stations on Alishan (阿里山), one of the nation’s most popular tourist destinations, after more than 10 Chinese tourists died from poor health or acute disease while on tours. A first-aid station will also be set up at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), another “must-see” attraction for Chinese tourists, DOH officials said. KMT Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞), said 17 Chinese tourists have died of non-accidental causes since Taiwan opened to cross-strait tourism in July 2008.
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