HEALTH
Avian flu found at farm
An outbreak of avian flu detected at a southern duck farm might have come from migratory birds, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said yesterday. Bureau Deputy Director Huang Kuo-ching (黃國青) said the H7N3 virus, a subtype of influenza A, detected at a Chiayi duck farm, “could have something to do with migratory birds.” The first few months of the year are the prevalent season for avian flu outbreaks, Huang said, adding that the H7N3 virus had also been found in turkeys in the US this year. Huang said in response, the US only implemented movement controls on the affected poultry because the virus was low risk and resumed slaughtering them once they were found to not contain the virus. Huang said the Chiayi cases were still waiting for the results of tests by the Animal Health Research Institute, which are expected later in the week. “Even if it is highly pathogenic, we will only cull the animals if they are infectious. Otherwise, movement controls will be sufficient,” Huang said.
CULTURE
Chinese to visit Aborigines
A delegation of Chinese educators and media groups will visit later this week to observe Taiwan’s Aboriginal culture and participate in a cross-Taiwan Strait harvest festival. Fu Guihua (符桂花), deputy chief of Hainan Provincial People’s Congress, will lead the delegation of faculty members from Southwest University for Nationalities, media representatives, and cultural and educational officials from Hainan on their visit from tomorrow through Saturday. It is the second year of the festival, organized by the Intercommunion Association for Cross-strait Minority Groups and Indigenous People, and it takes place in Pingtung County, association president Chien Tung-ming (簡東明) said.
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