■ TRANSPORTATION
Electric cars get new plates
Starting next month, vehicle registration departments nationwide will grant special licenses to those purchasing electric vehicles as part of the nation’s policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. According to the Directorate General of Highways (DGH), the new policy applies to owners of electric sedans, large-sized electric passenger vehicles as well as electric rental cars. The DGH added that license plate specifications, including the size and arrangement of numbers and letters, are basically the same as regular license plates, except the numbers and letters are green. The Chinese characters for electric vehicles (電動車) will also be printed on the upper side of the license plates, the DGH said. The DGH said that owners of electric vehicles can choose or bid for specific license plate numbers by following the regulations for regular plates.
■ HEALTH
Election funds announced
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will receive NT$250 million (US$7 million) in election subsidies this year and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will get NT$180 million, according to a promulgation released by the Central Election Commission. According to the Election and Recall Act for Public Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法), the government issues election subsidies to political parties according to the percentage of votes they received in the previous legislative election. In the last legislative election in 2008, the KMT received 51.23 percent of the votes, while the DPP received 36.91 percent. Although a total of 12 political parties took part in the election, only the KMT and the DPP crossed the 5 percent threshold and are therefore eligible to receive the subsidies.
■ HEALTH
Childbirth slogans selected
A panel of judges has selected 20 childbirth promotion slogans out of more than 28,000 submitted by the public. The chosen slogans will be posted on the Internet where all Taiwanese nationals and Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) holders can vote for their favorite. The online voting will be held from midday next Sunday until midday on Aug. 31 at 100.moi.gov.tw. Those who would like to vote need to provide their name, gender, date of birth and national ID number or ARC number to avoid repeat voting. The winner of the slogan contest will receive an NT$1 million cash award. Twenty voters will also receive a cash prize of NT$2,000 each.
■ SOCIETY
Ma praises volunteers
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday praised a group of volunteer bridge builders, calling them the “pride of Taiwan” as he noted that they have built 436 bridges since 1965 when their organization was established. Ma paid tribute to the work of the organization, called Chiayi Dogood, at the opening ceremony for three new bridges in Chaiyi County, where the group is based. The work of Chiayi Dogood is “heart-warming,” Ma said, noting that its members donate both money and time, working at weekends to help build bridges and roads to help improve transport in villages and other communities. Ma singled out the contribution of Lu Lin-chin (盧林金), who still volunteers at construction sites even though he is now 97 years old. Lu could qualify for a world record, Ma said. Chiayi Dogood has 1,800 members and more than 6,000 supporters, who each donate NT$100 a month for the bridge building projects, Ma said. The organization’s achievement of building 436 bridges so far is a “world wonder,” Ma added.
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