EDUCATION
Student fined NT$214
A Tamkang University student, Chiu Ting (邱庭), was recently fined NT$214 for accusing his teacher in an online post of being too strict and claiming that one-third of the class was barred from taking exams because of frequent absence. The teacher, Chang Ya-hui (張雅慧), said posting the accusations on an online bulletin board amounted to a public insult and filed a civil suit against Chiu, demanding NT$1 in damages for each day — 214 in all — the entry was left online. Chiu will have to write an apology and also leave it on the bulletin board for 214 days, the court ruled. The verdict can be appealed. Chang had also filed a criminal suit against Chiu over the matter, with the court sentencing Chiu to 25 days in jail, which can be converted to a fine of NT$25,000. However, after considering that Chiu had apologized to Chang and that he had no previous criminal record, the judge changed it to a three-year suspended sentence, during which time Chiu must perform 180 hours of community service.
TOURISM
Foreigners join writing bee
With cash prizes totaling NT$500,000, a writing contest for foreign nationals to share their experiences in Taiwan has drawn more than 1,000 entries since it was launched on Jan. 1, the organizer said yesterday. “Top 100 Fun Things to Do in Taiwan” is the topic of the contest being held as part of the efforts by the Tourism Bureau to attract foreign tourists, especially those from the US and Canada, a spokesperson for the event said. Foreign nationals living in Taiwan or overseas can submit an article of 50 to 100 words in English and up to five pictures to share their favorite experience in Taiwan to www.fun100.tealit.com until Feb. 10. The 50 best entries will receive an award, with a top prize of NT$50,000. Winners will be announced on Feb. 21 and the prizes awarded on March 15.
HEALTH
Playing cards found unsafe
Toxic residues have been found in playing cards, clothes and other products that have been selling well ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, a government official said yesterday. Tests of 30 playing card samples taken from stationery stores and supermarkets showed that five items contained free formaldehyde ranging from 267 parts per million (ppm) to 612ppm — at least three times higher than the 75ppm permissible level, the Bureau of Standards, Meteorology and Inspection said. Inhaling and touching high levels of formaldehyde residue can cause skin allergies, bureau Director-General Huang Lai-ho (黃來和) said. Random checks of 20 articles of children’s clothing also showed that one contained excessive amounts of the carcinogen benzidine, he said.
HEALTH
Guatemala mission shown
A documentary featuring Taiwan’s medical aid to Guatemala, one of its diplomatic allies, will be broadcast on a wireless television channel on Sunday at 7am. The documentary was jointly produced by Central News Agency (CNA) and the Taipei-based Chinese Television System (CTS) to cover a charity-oriented medial mission by Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Guatemala last year. The hospital had shipped 2 tonnes of drugs and medical items before the medical team left for the mission. The Chang Gung team performed six cleft lip and palate operations with simple equipment and devices in Guatemala.
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