■ CRIME
Senior arrested over porn
Taichung police said yesterday they have arrested the host of an illegal Web site selling pornographic content. Police said they detained Lin Tse-ching (林則敬), 75, during a raid three weeks ago at an office in Taipei County and found four hard drives, each containing more than 10,000 pornographic videos. Three information technology technicians were commissioned to retrieve the videos, a job that took them three weeks. Although Lin told police he was the host of the Web site, officers found that he seemed unaware of the content of the videos. “We don’t think he’s the real host, though he has a criminal record,” Taichung County Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Corps captain Kuo Shun-teh (郭順德) said. Lin had a criminal record for attempted murder. Non-subscribers would only be entitled to a free trial of a few minutes. Lin estimated the Web site generated at least NT$500,000 every month.
■ INTERNET
Facebook phishing found
A phishing Web site that claims to be able to safeguard users of the popular social Web site Facebook against spam and hackers is actually designed to steal private information, a security software maker warned on Tuesday. Symantec said in a press statement that the phishing Web site called “Security and Privacy Update,” which appears to advise Facebook users to take protective measures to enhance their security and privacy, was actually trying to steal users’ e-mail accounts and passwords. Phishing is a computer term that refers to those who “fish” for sensitive information from Internet users such as e-mail addresses, user names and passwords. The Web site asks Facebook users to confirm their accounts. The company advised Internet users to check the addresses of the Web sites they visit to make sure that the sites are genuine.
■ EVENTS
Designers to showcase work
Taiwan Designers’ Week 2010, an annual event that showcases the talent of Taiwanese designers and introduces their latest work, will be held from Sept. 3 through Sept. 12 in Taipei, sponsors said yesterday. The event will address four major themes — culture, environment, life and community. It will bring together 13 groups of designers, including eight that made successful appearances at the same event in previous years and five groups making their debuts at the show, the sponsors said. This year marks the fourth edition of the event, which is being co-sponsored by the Designers Association of Taiwan, the non-profit Taiwan Cultural-Creative Development Foundation supervised by the Council for Cultural Affairs and Huashan 1914 Creative Park. The 10-day event will take place at Huashan 1914 Creative Park on Bade Road in downtown Taipei, the sponsors said.
■DIPLOMACY
Taiwan donates equipment
The government has donated a set of food processing equipment to an agricultural association in Paraguay as part of efforts to promote bilateral cooperation and friendship, diplomatic officials said yesterday. The equipment was previously used by Taiwan’s technical mission in Paraguay for a food processing cooperation project. After the project ended, the Taiwanese embassy decided to donate the appliances to an association of sesame growers in the Paraguayan province of San Pedro at the request of its governor, Jose Ledesma. At the donation ceremony, Ambassador Huang Lien-sheng (黃聯昇) said it was an honor to make the donation to the high-quality processed food industry in Paraguay.
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