CRIME
Teen might have killed baby
Police said yesterday they have questioned a 15-year-old girl suspected of murdering her newborn baby by throwing her out of the window of a second-floor apartment. Police launched an investigation after the baby, with the umbilical cord still attached, was found lying in the street earlier this week in New Taipei City (新北市) and died after being taken to hospital. “The girl said she didn’t know what to do with the baby after she had given birth in the bathroom,” a police spokesman told reporters. “She wanted to flush the baby down the toilet, but it didn’t fit so she threw it out of the window of her second-floor apartment.” The girl, who is in her third-year in junior high school, said she had been impregnated by a classmate, but had hidden her condition from her family.
TOURISM
Landing visa considered
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has confirmed news reports that his Cabinet was considering offering landing visa privileges for certain categories of Taiwanese visitors. However, Najib said at a press conference that Taiwanese travelers and businesspeople would be offered landing visa treatment only if doing so did not compromise Malaysia’s relations with China, according to a report in the Chinese-language Sin Chew daily newspaper. Najib said Malaysia would inform China of its plan to avoid any unnecessary negative diplomatic impact. Malaysian Minister of Tourism Ng Yen Yen said recently that Kuala Lumpur would also consider granting visa free privileges to Taiwanese visitors in the future.
TRANSPORTATION
Vending machines increased
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is planning to increase the number of vending machines and the convenience stores at its first and second terminals, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said yesterday. The remarks came after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) accused the airport of overcharging its customers. A bottle of mineral water, for example, costs NT$80 at the stores in the terminal control area, which is about five times more than retail price, she said. She said the food prices in the terminal control area were higher than retail prices by 50 to 70 percent. The company said the airport has different brands of mineral water, with the cost ranging from NT$18 to NT$80. Meanwhile, the first and second terminals have a total of 75 vending machines and 305 drinking water fountains. The company said it was evaluating the possibility of doubling the number of vending machines. To meet the rising demand for fair-priced food, the company said it was considering having convenience stores in the terminal control areas.
CRIME
Tankers charged for oil
Two foreign tankers were charged with illegal oil trading some 6 nautical miles (11km) off the coast of Chiayi County, the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday. One of the tankers, registered in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, was found to be carrying around 4.6 million liters of diesel with a market value of up to NT$100 million (US$3.46 million). The captains of the Kiribati tanker and the other ship, a Panama-flagged vessel, denied any wrongdoing when they were arrested earlier in the day. The coast guard said the two tankers violated marine environmental protection laws, because oil trading at sea poses an oil-spill threat that could damage the livelihoods of local fishermen.
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