The nation’s water supplier said yesterday that water reserves are sufficient in major reservoirs around the country and that no water shortages are expected before the end of March.
Taiwan Water Corp (Taiwater) officials said that stable water supplies are ensured until March, thanks to several typhoons that brought large quantities of rain.
Taiwater carried out hydrology and water level inspections at major reservoirs around the country from Jan. 1 to Jan. 5 and found that water in reservoirs in central, southern and northern Taiwan were at normal levels ranging from 73 percent to 82 percent, Taiwater said.
Taiwater also implemented measures earlier in the week to control the water output volumes of several reservoirs in central and southern Taiwan, while increasing monitoring of the Gaoping River (高屏溪) in southern Greater -Kaohsiung and neighboring Pingtung County, it said.
In line with the policy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Water Resources Agency, Taiwater has also undertaken a series of measures to increase water output in the Kaohsiung area — including tapping underground water sources — to 400,000m3 per day to ensure stable water supplies in the area during the winter dry season, the company said.
Meanwhile, water reserves in the three major reservoirs in the Makung area of -Penghu County had fallen to 200,000m3 as of last week, prompting Taiwater to increase the output of fresh water from its desalination plant there to 13,000m3 a day to meet demand.
Water consumption in the Makung area averages about 20,000m3 a day.
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