HEALTH
Free Tamiflu ends in April
The Centers for Disease Control yesterday said that as the flu season was past its peak and should continue to weaken, it would stop providing Tamiflu for free starting on April 10. Late last month, the center extended to the end of this month the offer of publicly funded Tamiflu to people with high fever for two consecutive days and those who live with the patient and have developed flu-like symptoms. As temperatures have gradually climbed and the number of reported cases of flu-like symptoms and severe flu has eased, the center said no further extensions of free Tamiflu were expected. However, people belonging to high-risk categories who contract the flu will continue to receive Tamiflu for free, it said.
EMPLOYMENT
Taipower defends actions
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) on Sunday rejected accusations that employment of the state utility’s retired executives by its subsidiaries was illegal. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsiao Ching-tien (蕭景田) on Saturday said that Taipower has for years arranged for its retired executives to be employed as board members or general managers at its subsidiaries. A shortage of talent is the main reason why people close to retirement age are offered employment by its subdiaries, Taipower official Huang Huei-yu (黃惠予) said. Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen--shiang (施顏祥) said that “while the conduct of Taipower is not illegal, it is inappropriate.” It is not a question of legality but a matter of public perception, another ministry official said. The law stipulates that retired public servants cannot receive both a monthly pension and a salary. Taipower is a state-owned firm in which retirees receive one-time lump-sum pension payments and is not
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