■ CROSS-STRAIT
ARATS head to visit south
Chaiman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), is planning a week-long visit to the south, local media reported yesterday. Chen aims to travel to several cities in the south between Sept. 5 and Sept. 11, the Chinese-language United Daily News quoted unnamed sources as saying. The visit will come as campaigning is heating up nationwide ahead of November’s five special municipality elections. Chen’s deputy, Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), visited Taiwan earlier this month for the first time since his close encounter with pro-Taiwan politicians in 2008 when he visited the Confucius Temple in Tainan City. He was jostled and jeered by pro-Taiwan politicians and activists and ended up on the ground. It was not clear if Zhang tripped or was pushed.
■ CRIME
Drug ring apprehended
Police announced yesterday they had busted a drug smuggling ring thanks to information exchanges between Taiwan police and their Japanese counterparts. Police said they arrested the mastermind of the ring, a 64-year-old surnamed Yang (楊), along with four of his subordinates, in the departure lounge at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport the previous afternoon, as well as three drug mules. Police also seized 559.5g of amphetamine the mules had hidden inside their bodies. Yang had previously been sentenced to 15 years in prison for heroin smuggling by Taipei Shilin District Court in 2007, police said. He fled into a mountainous area in Shihding (石碇), Taipei County. Police said Yang would often find homeless people to act as drug mules, paying them between NT$50,000 and NT$200,000 for each run, depending on the volume of each shipment.
■ POLITICS
Tang has Legionnaires’
Former premier Tang Fei (唐飛) was diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease after being flown to Taiwan on an emergency flight from China early on Thursday for treatment of a lung infection at Veterans General Hospital in Taipei, a hospital spokesman said yesterday. After diagnosing him with Legionnaires’ disease, a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria called Legionella, doctors treated Tang with erythromycin, an antibiotic, and notified the Centers for Disease Control of his case, a spokesman said. A chest X-ray and examination yesterday morning showed improvement in Tang’s pneumonia, heart irregularities, shortness of breath and pleural effusion — fluid accumulated around the lungs. Other checks also showed a decrease in lung inflammation indicators and an increased white blood cell count.
■ EDUCATION
Student database unveiled
The Ministry of Education announced on Thursday the launch of a database management system for international students studying at local colleges and universities. The system is designed to reduce the administrative work of university staff, who at present are required to spend time documenting and updating international student information, said Liu Ching-jen (劉慶仁), head of the ministry’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations. The new system makes it easier to update information for both school staff and the National Immigration Agency, which will be notified of any change in student records, Liu said. The system will include students from China once they are allowed to enroll in local universities, the ministry 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