ENTERTAINMENT
Digital TV switchover begins
The National Communications Commission began its nationwide switchover to digital television yesterday by shutting down analogue television signals in Greater Taichung’s Dajia District (大甲). National Communications Commission Chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅) announced that Dajia, known for housing one of the oldest Matsu (Goddess of the Sea) temples in the nation, had become the first district in the country to completely switch to digital TV. A ceremony was held at Greater Taichung City Hall to mark the landmark switchover, as well as the beginning of the larger nationwide analogue-to-digital conversion. According to the commission, all analogue television signals will be turned off by June 30 next year, ushering in a new era of digital TV. Su said TV users in Dajia would now be able to watch television shows on 16 high-definition channels free of charge.
SOCIETY
Japanese survivors arrive
A group of victims from Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami arrived in Taiwan yesterday at the invitation of a program designed to help them recover. The program, which runs from the end of this month until mid-November, provides free round-trip airfare and accommodation to 1,000 quake victims for a two-week stay in Taiwan, Tourism Bureau officials said. The group of visitors, the first of a series, will also receive free EasyCards for use on public transport, tickets to the National Place Museum and a one-day trip to areas in central Taiwan struck by the 921 Earthquake. Meanwhile, a delegation led by Toshio Yoshimura, secretary-general of the Democratic Party in Fukuoka Prefecture, also arrived in Taiwan yesterday.
CRIME
Sex crime database released
The Judicial Yuan yesterday introduced a database on sexual crime sentences in a hope that it can serve as a reference for judges when they sentence sex offenders. Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lin Ching-fang (林錦芳) told a press conference yesterday that the system could also help to reduce discrepancies between sex crime verdicts. The database contains more than 5,000 sexual crime rulings handed out from 2007 to last year, Lin said. The move came in the wake of criticism of the nation’s judges, after individuals convicted of sexually abusing children received what were widely considered to be excessively light sentences.
TRANSPORTATION
Government to seal wells
The government will spend about US$1.8 billion to seal nearly 1,000 wells over the next 10 years to save the high-speed rail system, which has been threatened by subsidence, an official at the Public Construction Commission said yesterday. The project would significantly reduce the rate of subsidence along a stretch of the rail in central Taiwan because of excessive ground water drainage, the official said. The 345km system using Japanese bullet-train technology is billed as one of the nation’s largest privately funded transport projects, with an estimated cost of US$15 billion. However, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp incurred about US$2 billion in losses, or roughly two-thirds of its capitalization, three years after the system went into operation in 2007. Last year, the company secured new funding of US$12 billion as part of efforts to pay off earlier loans.
POLITICS
No case against Su Chih-fen
The Yunlin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said it had decided not to indict Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) amid allegations she had embezzled public funds designated for a local religious festival. Wu Wei-chih (吳威志), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate in the Yunlin County commissioner election in 2009, filed a lawsuit against Su during the campaign. Wu said Su, as the head of the Yunlin County Government, had spent NT$60 million (US$2 million) to hold the “2008 Good God Festival” (好神節) and alleged that she used this as an opportunity to solicit NT$50 million from Formosa Petrochemical Corp, which has a plant in the county’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). Wu alleged that Su pocketed some of the money through a local cultural foundation. The district prosecutors’ office closed the case yesterday, citing insufficient evidence.
TRAVEL
More Taiwanese visit Europe
The number of Taiwanese visitors to Europe jumped 33 percent year-on-year from March to May this year, spurred by the EU’s visa exemption program, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The number of Taiwanese visitors to Europe is expected to further surge this summer, the high season for travel, a ministry official said. The visa waiver, which took effect on Jan. 11, allowed Taiwanese nationals visa-free entry into a total of 35 countries and territories in Europe and was later expanded to include 11 overseas French territories and three Balkan countries, the official said. The visa-free measure has also helped to expand exchanges between Taiwan and Europe and strengthen bilateral ties, he said. For example, 44 groups of political and economic officials from Europe visited Taiwan in the first half of this year, up 66 percent from the same period the previous
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