EARTHQUAKES
Hualien rocked by quakes
Three earthquakes shook Hualien early yesterday, with the strongest having a magnitude of 5.1, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, the Central Weather Bureau said. The magnitude 5.1 quake hit at 1:45am, centered 7.5km southwest of Hualien County Hall at a depth of 18.1km, the bureau’s Seismology Center said. The quake caused strong tremors, but they did not last long, the center said. A magnitude 2.8 quake struck at 2:14am, with its center 9km west of the county hall at a depth of 11.7km, the center said. It was followed by a magnitude 4.7 temblor at 3:43am, which was centered 8.5km southwest of the county hall at a depth of 16.1km.
SOCIETY
Villages buy lottery tickets
Five villages in Taitung County joined forces to buy tickets for the national lottery that was to be drawn last night in the hope of hitting the NT$1.3 billion (US$45 million) jackpot and improving the lives of their residents. Children from the mountainous villages in the county’s Yanping Township (延平), which has a population of 3,551, collected NT$5,600 worth of coins, while adults set up a pool of NT$92,000 to buy lottery tickets. Tsai Wen-hao (蔡文浩), head of Taoyuan Village (桃源), said if they won, he would suggest building a swimming pool and a fitness center in each village, as well as a rehabilitation center for the township. The rest of the money would be handed out in cash to each village based on its investment ratio, he said. Wang Yi-chung (王勇生), head of Wuling Village (武陵), said his dream was to buy seven electric vehicles for disabled elderly villagers to help them get around more easily. Two other village heads said they would use the money to improve public transportation infrastructure, such as repairing a damaged bridge.
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