WEATHER
Cold front moves in
A cold air mass moving in from China sent the mercury plunging yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. Temperatures in areas north of Changhua County plummeted to a low of about 10oC late yesterday evening as the cold air mass picked up strength, the bureau said. The cold spell is forecast to persist until Monday, when it is expected to weaken, the bureau said. The front is also expected to bring rain to northern and central Taiwan, while snow is likely in mountainous areas, it said. Temperatures are expected to hover around 11oC to 14oC in the north, 11oC to 17oC in central areas, 14oC to 19oC in the south and 12oC to 20oC in the east.
RAILWAYS
TRA sets up ties with Japan
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) will start selling limited numbers of commemorative products at select stations on Monday, as its CK124 steam locomotive establishes sister ties with Japan Rail’s Hokkaido C11 steam locomotive. To celebrate the new ties, the TRA said it would introduce commemorative products featuring the logos of both countries’ railways. A total of 300 T-shirts, 600 hats and 900 key chains will be on sale starting at 10am on Monday at TRA shops at the Taipei Railway Station and the Neiwan Station in Hsinchu County, and on the CK124 steam locomotive train between Hsinchu and Neiwan leaving Hsinchu at 10:09am.
DIPLOMACY
New Singapore envoy tapped
Taiwanese Representative to Switzerland Hsieh Fa-dah (謝發達) has been appointed as the country’s new representative to Singapore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Singapore officials have said they welcomed the new appointment, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said on Thursday, adding that it would probably take two to three months before Hsieh assumes his new post. While serving as vice minister of economic affairs, Hsieh participated in talks with the city-state under the Agreement between Singapore and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Partnership (ASTEP). Yang said ASTEP talks were ongoing and would be one of Hsieh’s main responsibilities. While Taiwan and Singapore may hold their own views on the economic partnership, everything is proceeding smoothly, Hsieh said.
SOCIETY
Childcare program revamped
Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) yesterday said the ministry planned to expand a childcare subsidy program by enlarging the pool of qualified child-minders. Under the current program, families that employ licensed nannies for children aged under two are entitled to a monthly subsidy that ranges from NT$3,000 to NT$5,000 depending on their household income. Once the expansion has been approved by the Executive Yuan, families that hire nannies who are not professionally licensed, but who have graduated from a vocational high school or a college or university’s department of childcare, home economics or healthcare, or those who have concluded a 126-hour professional training program, would be entitled to a subsidy ranging from NT$2,000 to NT$4,000 per month. Lee added that under the renewed program, the grandparents of children aged under two who are the primary caregivers could also be defined as child caregivers, as long as they complete the 126-hour training program and acquire certification.
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