■ EDUCATION
Taiwan takes a gold at IOI
Taiwan won one gold and three silver medals at this year’s International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), which began on Saturday last week and ended yesterday in Waterloo, Canada, Ministry of Education officials said yesterday. Four Taiwanese high school students joined the annual games, which were attended by 336 students from 84 countries, the officials said, adding that each Taiwanese team member managed to grab a medal. The IOI is an annual computer science competition for secondary school students, which was started by Blagovest Sendov, a Bulgarian professor, in 1987. Taiwan joined the international competition for the first time in 1994. Last year, Taiwanese students won two gold and two silver medals at the 21st IOI in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, marking Taiwan’s best-ever performance in the contest. Taiwan is now seeking to host the 2014 games, the ministry said.
■ SHIPPING
Ports pledge cooperation
Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau Director-General Hsiao Ding-hsun (蕭丁訓) yesterday signed a letter of intent with his Guangzhou counterpart Chang Min (常敏) to promote cooperation and exchanges between the two ports on either side of the Taiwan Strait. The signing ceremony was attended by Vice Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) and Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Chuang Chi-wang (莊啟旺). Guangzhou Mayor Wan Qingliang (萬慶良), who is currently on a visit to the country, was also present to witness the event. Hsiao said he hoped the new links would help Kaohsiung Harbor become a free-trade port, and he noted that in May, the harbor signed a letter of intent for cooperation with the port of Xiamen in southern China’s Fujian Province. Under the letter of intent, Kaohsiung and Guangzhou agreed to boost exchanges of personnel, information and experiences in harbor management.
■ METEOROLOGY
Water supplies sufficient
Although no typhoons have approached the nation so far this year, the water supply will remain sufficient until the end of the year, thanks to intense afternoon showers, the Central Weather Bureau said. Typhoons, which usually occur from July to September, are the major source of rainfall in Taiwan, the bureau said, noting that it is unusual that there have been no typhoons so far this year. Taiwan gets hit by an average of three typhoons a year, it said. The volume of plum rains, which are also vital to the maintenance of the water supply, has decreased because of the impact of La Nina, a phenomenon associated with cooler than normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, the bureau said.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Schools recycle batteries
Batteries recycled through a school program during the 2009-2010 school year amounted to 402 tonnes, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said. The EPA said the average battery recycling rate between 2007 and last year reached 48 percent, passing the EU’s minimum battery collection target of 45 percent by 2016. Among the 3,041 schools participating in the program, 140 schools made the distinguished list and 56 schools will be awarded up to NT$100,000. There were 238 more schools and 25,000 more students taking part in the recycling program than in the previous year, the EPA said, adding that 75 percent of the schools around the nation were actively involved.
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