SOCIETY
Agency stiffens penalties
Public servants found drunk-driving could be dismissed from their posts if a case is deemed to be serious, the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration said yesterday. The agency called a meeting with related government agencies to draw up rules to punish offending public servants as part of efforts to prevent drinking and driving. The most severe punishment for public servants involved in drunk-driving will be two major demerits that can lead to dismissal. Public servants who drink and drive, but stay under the drink driving limit, will receive two reprimands. They will receive one demerit or one major demerit if they fail an alcohol test or are caught twice in five years. In addition, each government agency can have its own rules, including the regulation currently applied to military personnel and police that superiors be held liable for their immediate subordinates drunk-driving.
CRIME
Student released on bail
The Taipei District Court yesterday released a Turkish student on bail of NT$200,000 (US$6,680) after he was accused of trying to sexually assault a student he met online after filming bedroom trysts with dozens of women. The court banned the man, identified by his Chinese surname, Wang (王), from moving from his current residence and from leaving the country. Wang must also report to the Taipei City Police’s Zhongshan Precinct (中山分局) every Tuesday and Thursday evening during the investigation. Investigators said they found 29 video files on Wang’s mobile phone and computer showing him having sex with different women. Wang said he never forced any woman to have sex and that he filmed the encounters for his own viewing, adding that he had “made copies of the tapes for the women.”
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