A group of 43 young professionals and students from all over the world are in Taiwan under a program aimed at increasing awareness of Taiwan and its politics and culture.
The participants, all aged 20 to 40 and from 20 countries across Africa, Europe and Central America, are traveling around Taiwan until Aug. 30 as part of this year’s annual International Youth Culture and Study Tour, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Aside from visits to government agencies such as the Legislature and the Environmental Protection Administration, participants will also have the opportunity to get up close and personal with local culture by visiting night markets, tasting Taiwanese specialties and learning more about local music, glove puppetry and tea, the ministry said.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Vanessa Shih (史亞平) expressed the hope that after the visit, all participants will go home and share their experiences of Taiwan and be proud of being a good friend to Taiwan.
Victoria Hasson, a 30-year-old Briton who lives in South Africa, said she is looking forward to “examples of good liberal policymaking” in Taiwan.
Hasson, an advisor for South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance, said the country is at a crossroads where it will choose between becoming more liberal or more socialist.
“I would like to have examples of how beneficial it will be to become more liberal,” she said.
Leano Monagen from neighboring Botswana said he hopes to get a better understanding of Taiwan’s economic development.
The 32-year-old, who works in property development, said he is also looking forward to sampling the nation’s cuisine over the coming days.
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