■ DIPLOMACY
Taiwan, Israel boost ties
The Taiwan Israel Chamber of Commerce (TICC) was established in Taipei yesterday with a focus on promoting trade, culture, education and tourism between the two countries. The establishment of the TICC will advance the relationship and cooperation between Taiwan and Israel, said the new group said. It held its first meeting yesterday to select a president and council members. This is the best time to set up the TICC because of rapid growth in bilateral trade between Taiwan and Israel, Raphael Gamzou, the head of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, said in a written statement. Gamzou said he had long anticipated that local business people would form an organization to promote bilateral trade. Trade between Taiwan and Israel grew last year, even though the world economy declined. In the first quarter of this year, Israel’s total exports to Taiwan grew by 145 percent, while exports from Taiwan to Israel grew by 16 percent, the Israeli trade office said.
■ TYPHOON MORAKOT
Donations top NT$23 billion
Since Typhoon Morakot devastated parts of the country last August, more than NT$23 billion (US$718 million) in donations have poured into disaster relief funds set up by the Ministry of the Interior as well as those of 73 non-governmental charities. So far, NT$11.6 billion, or about 50.6 percent, has been spent on relief and reconstruction efforts, the statement said. The ministry alone has received nearly NT$7 billion in donations. Morakot left more than 700 dead and dozens missing, with landslides destroying entire villages. While many charities have spent all or part of the donation money, the ministry said a few had yet to spend any of the donations received, adding that it will follow up on whether these groups executed their relief plans within the scheduled timeframe.
■TOURISM
Twenty couples wed
Twenty couples, selected from more than 200 people for their compelling love stories, attended a group wedding ceremony at Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County on Saturday. The couples were required to submit love stories related to the lake to be able to participate in the event — which was hosted by the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration and one of the top hotels in the area, the Lalu, to promote local tourism, the administration said on its Web site. Some of the couples selected wrote that they met at the lake, while others hoped to hold their weddings in the same place their parents did. One couple, married for 20 years, wanted to hold a special wedding with their children in attendance, the administration said. The chosen couples had to purchase a NT$50,000 wedding package, including the wedding, one night’s accommodation, meals at the hotel and a boat tour.
■ SOCIETY
French fest pulls in crowd
The fourth annual Bal Populaire, to celebrate France’s National Day, attracted hundreds of people to National Taipei University of Technology on Saturday. Put together by the Association des Francais de Taiwan (AFT), this year’s party featured dance performances and live music. There were also food stands selling traditional French food and wine. AFT president Dominique Levy thanked his committee of eight people and a 50-strong team of volunteers. Although Taiwan and France have no official diplomatic relations, he said, cultural exchanges between the people of both countries remain vibrant and frequent.
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