SOCIETY
Receipt reward review eyed
The legislature on Thursday passed a proposal to give the Ministry of Finance six months to decide whether it should scrap the additional cash rewards for uniform invoice receipts that were recently introduced, over concerns that they could reduce people’s willingness to donate their receipts to charity. The ministry recently offered an additional NT$10 million (US$340,962) in prize money to encourage people to ask for receipts from local stores as part of its efforts to prevent businesses from evading taxes. Many local charities make a considerable amount of money by collecting receipts from the public. However, since the ministry announced the new cash rewards, the Genesis Social Welfare Foundation, the nation’s largest receipt collector, has seen a 70 percent drop in the number of receipts it has received, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said.
ECONOMY
Per capita debt increases
The Ministry of Finance announced yesterday that the average per capita debt burden had reached NT$204,000 (US$6,951) as of the end of last month. According to national debt figures released by the ministry, each citizen’s share of the debt rose by NT$7,000 from NT$197,000 last November. The nation’s outstanding debt totaled NT$4.474 trillion, while short-term loans stood at NT$240 billion, a slight increase compared with NT$4.321 trillion and NT$235 billion respectively in November. It was in that month that Taiwan adopted a Web-based national debt clock system like the one used in the US. The national debt clock, which shows the country’s debt situation, is published on the seventh day of each month on the ministry’s Web site.
CULTURE
Tibetan singer to perform
Kelsang Chukie Tethong, one of the world’s best-known Tibetan folk singers, will be performing with other exiled Tibetan singers and dancers at the Red House (西門紅樓) in the Ximending (西門町) shopping district in Taipei tomorrow. The performance is to take place at 2pm. Tethong, who was born into a family of musicians now living in exile in India, graduated from the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala, India. Prior to tomorrow’s concert, she has performed in Europe, the US, Hong Kong and in southern Taiwan. Having performed in front of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, she was praised by him as “the most excellent female Tibetan singer.” Tethong said that she hopes her performance would help inspire young Tibetans in exile because their traditional culture is gradually being lost in exiled communities.
SOCIETY
Abuse guides published
In view of the growing number of domestic abuse cases involving children, the Garden of Hope Foundation yesterday published a series of illustrated guides that aim to teach children what to do if they become victims of domestic violence. Part of the purpose of the book is to help abused children to testify in court, foundation executive director Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) said at a press conference in Taipei. As victims of domestic violence can be of any age, different guides in the series are targeted at different age groups, she said. While the books are to help victims deal with abuse after it happens, the foundation also works to prevent domestic abuse, she said.
CULTURE
Chopin pianist gives recitals
Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, the first woman in 45 years to win the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition, will give recitals in Taipei and Kaohsiung, the organizer announced yesterday in Taipei. The Taipei concert will take place today at the National Concert Hall, while the Kaohsiung recital is to be given at the city’s Chihshan Hall on Monday. The 25-year-old Avdeeva will play the music she performed in the Chopin competition she won last year — Scherzo No. 4 in E major opus 54, Four Mazurkas opus 30, Two Nocturnes opus 27, Sonata No. 2 in B minor opus 35 and Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat major opus 61. She will also play some of her other favorite Chopin music in the two concerts.
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