POLITICS
Wuer Kaixi invited to Japan
Former Chinese student leader Wuer Kaixi (吾爾開希) will be one of the Chinese activists invited to represent imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) at a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Hiroshima next month, a press report said on Wednesday. Wuer, 42, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing who once studied with Liu, will read a message on Liu’s behalf at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, to be held from Nov. 12 to Nov. 14, Kyodo news agency said. Liu, was sentenced to 11 years in prison last December on subversion charges after co-authoring a manifesto calling for political reform in China. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 8.
DIPLOMACY
Former Japanese PM to visit
Shinzo Abe, who served as prime minister of Japan from September 2006 to September 2007, will arrive in Taiwan for a two-day visit on Sunday on the maiden flight between Taipei Songshan Airport and Japan’s Haneda Airport, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Abe’s visit will make him the second former Japanese prime minister to visit Taiwan this year, following a visit by Taro Aso in April. According to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞), the head of the Taiwan-Japan Parliament Member Association, Abe will meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) during his stay.
FINANCE
New loan rules introduced
The Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) yesterday said that in the future, those who provide sufficient collateral for home or car loans would not need to provide a guarantor. CPC Consumer Ombudsman Huang Chien-lung (黃建隆) said the commission recently passed revisions to regulations governing the items that must be recorded in the standard Personal Car and Housing Loan Standard Contract. One of the most significant changes to the rules is that banking institutions must not require a debtor to provide a guarantor if he or she has sufficient collateral to cover the loan. The revisions would also protect consumers from unfair deals by allowing them to halt monetary transactions in the event that the car or home purchased is defective or has other problems not disclosed in the contract. The rules will become effective after an announcement by the Financial Supervisory Commission.
TRAVEL
Missing woman calls home
A 27-year-old Taiwanese woman surnamed Lin (林) who was reported missing in Malaysia after a serious argument with her French boyfriend called her family yesterday after being out of reach for nine days. Lin and her boyfriend arrived in Malaysia for a short vacation on Oct. 11. Friends said the couple had a quarrel which led to a break-up on Oct. 19. Lin decided to continue the trip on her own, but no one heard from her for nine days. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) said yesterday afternoon Lin’s mother received a phone call from her daughter, who is on Tioman Island 32km off the east coast of Malaysia. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Malaysia had said on Wednesday that Lin was listed as missing in Malaysia and that the local police had passed her information to the International Criminal Police Organization, although departure records indicated she was still in Malaysia.
TRAVEL
MOFA issues warning
Taiwanese visiting India and Bali are advised to be alert health-wise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Bureau of Consular Affairs said yesterday. Cases of chikungunya fever have increased in the New Delhi area over the past two weeks, while the city is also battling a dengue fever epidemic. Meanwhile, Bali is trying to bring a rabies epidemic under control, the bureau said. Visitors to these areas are advised to check information on the Centers for Diseases Control Web site, the bureau said.
ENVIRONMENT
Spoonbills begin to arrive
A total of 347 black-faced spoonbills had arrived in Tainan County’s wetlands as of Wednesday, the Wildlife Conversation Institute of Tainan County said. The first of the endangered species to arrive was observed on Sept. 26, about one week later than usual because of Typhoon Fanapi, said Chiu Jen-wu (邱仁武), chairman of the institute. The birds migrate each autumn from northern China and the Korean Peninsula, with some choosing to spend the winter on wetlands near Tainan’s Zengwen River (曾文溪) estuary. By Oct. 16 there were 68 spoonbills. Now that the northeasterly monsoon winds are stronger, the numbers could reach 500 by Sunday and peak next month, Chu said.
POLITICS
Pledges met in miniature
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Sinbei City mayoral candidate Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) supporters have been busy in the past two weeks making some of his key promises come to life — in miniature form. They have crafted a miniature version of the to-be-formed Sinbei City using more than 30,000 Lego bricks, including a functioning rail system representing Chu’s pledge to expand the area’s MRT system.
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