DIPLOMACY
Numerous posts filled
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) has been appointed as the country’s representative to the UK, Foreign Minister Timothy Yang (楊進添) confirmed yesterday. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recently appointed National Security Bureau adviser Tung Kuo-yu (董國猷) to replace Shen and transferred Katherine Chang (張小月) from the UK to Australia. The ministry appointed Agnes Chen (陳華玉), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, as representative to Greece; Chang Ming (張明), who previously served as deputy representative to Nigeria, as representative to Fiji; Raymond Wang (王樂生) as representative to the Philippines; and Michael Hsu (徐佩勇) as representative to South Africa.
CRIME
Vietnam detains three
A press report said police in central Vietnam have detained three Taiwanese, 20 Chinese and a Vietnamese for suspected involvement in a swindling case. The Tuoi Tre newspaper said the suspects were detained when police raided a hotel in the resort city of Nha Trang. They were accused of impersonating Chinese law enforcement officials in Internet phone calls to suspected offenders in China and coercing them to transfer money to their bank accounts.
EMPLOYMENT
Hiring Web site to launch
The government will launch a Web site in January to allow employers to hire foreign workers directly online. It will save employers and foreign workers money since they will not have to go through human resource agencies, the Council of Labor Affairs said. It can take up to four months to hire a foreign worker through an agency, but the online service could shorten that time to about a month.
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