SOCIETY
Disabled claims increase
More than 1 million people — 1,093,219 — applied for physically or mentally disabled identification booklets between January and September this year, marking an increase of 2.07 percent compared with the same period last year, the latest Ministry of the Interior statistics showed. Officials said that the total subsidy allocation provided for certificate holders during the period increased by 5.83 percent, rising to NT$17.02 billion (US$560 million). About 4.71 percent of the population is disabled, the ministry said. Among the available allowances, most disabled people applied for living assistance, followed by subsidies for nursing and home care expenses and auxiliary appliance assistance, it said.
HISTORY
Olympian fights for hall
Former Olympic bronze medalist Chi Cheng (紀政) said yesterday that she will continue a bid to build a memorial hall in honor of Yang Chuan-kuang (楊傳廣), a silver medalist at the 1960 Rome Olympics, to pay tribute to his contribution to the nation’s sporting culture. Yang, known as the “Iron Man of Asia,” was an Olympic decathlete who represented the nation in 1960. He was also an Aboriginal icon. At the time, the government built him a two-story house in his hometown in Taitung County. The colors of the five Olympic rings painted on the outside wall of the house have lost their radiance, said Chi, adding: “How is it possible that a house looking like this will allow people to feel his greatness?” Saying that while Taiwanese athletes have won Olympic medals since Yang’s accomplishment in 1960, not a single Taiwanese athlete has claimed another decathlon medal, Chi said. Yang died of a stroke in 2007.
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