DIPLOMACY
California delegation visiting
A delegation from the California State Assembly is visiting to promote bilateral exchanges in trade and culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. During its seven-day trip, the delegation is scheduled to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and call on officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. It will also visit the Taipei and Tainan city governments, the ministry said. “The visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral ties in trade and culture,” said Bruce Linghu (令狐榮達), director-general of the Department of North American Affairs. Issues to be discussed include agriculture and electronic products, he said. The nine-member delegation from across party lines includes Connie Conway, leader of the California State Assembly Republican Caucus, and Susan Bonilla of the Democratic Party, who was born in Taiwan, and lived here as a child, Linghu added.
SOCIETY
More seeking certificate
A much higher number of people than expected have applied for a new disability certificate that was introduced in July last year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Between July last year and February, the ministry received more than 77,000 new applications for the certificate, which classifies the level of disability and required care of the holder, the ministry said. The year-on-year increase of about 27,000 was attributed to “looser regulations and a wider range of [disability] classifications,” it added. In addition, the new certificate uses codes, rather than words, to classify disabilities, giving the holder more privacy. Also, the new evaluation process extends beyond the person’s mental and physical condition to include environmental factors and the level of ability to function within society, the ministry said. This gives the government more comprehensive information on disabled needs and allows for better services to be provided to the disabled, it added.
WEATHER
Agency seeds clouds
The Water Resources Agency seeded clouds in Miaoli and Taoyuan counties yesterday in an attempt to create precipitation and help relieve an extended dry spell. Taking advantage of an approaching cold front, the agency sent plumes of calcium chloride smoke into rain clouds over the Ming-Te (明德) and Shihmen (石門) reservoirs in Miaoli and Taoyuan counties respectively. However, there were few immediate effects. Agency official Chien Chao-chun (簡昭群) said it was difficult to determine when the effects would become evident, but added that the agency would continue to work at Shihmen Reservoir until 8pm yesterday. Mingte Reservoir supplies 130,000 to 140,000 tonnes of irrigation water, 30,000 tonnes of domestic water and 10,000 tonnes of industrial water per day, the agency said.
HEALTH
Seventeen try procedure
National Taiwan University Hospital announced yesterday it had conducted 17 Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantations (TAVI) since 2010. TAVI is a new medical technique available to patients with aortic stenosis that saves them from undergoing open-heart surgery. Aortic stenosis is a valvular disease commonly seen in the elderly that is characterized by an abnormal narrowing of the aortic valve, hospital cardiologist Kao Hsien-li (高憲立) said. “The narrowing increases the heart’s workload and symptoms like breathing difficulty, dizziness and angina develop,” Kao said.
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