CHARITY
Rummage sale at TAS
The Taipei American School (TAS) Orphanage Club will host a gigantic rummage sale on Saturday. The club members have collected a huge variety of new and used clothing, shoes, toys, electronic items and miscellaneous other items. The sale begins at 10am and ends at 5pm, and will be held in the school’s forecourt and lobby rain or shine. All of the proceeds go to the club’s funds for needy children and orphans in Taiwan, the outlying islands and overseas. TAS is at 800 Zhongshan N Rd Sec 6 in Tianmu (天母).
CULTURE
Band performs in Jakarta
The Shock Concert Band on Sunday enchanted Taiwanese expatriates in Indonesia with a performance of classic Taiwanese pop songs in Jakarta, including The Moon Represents my Heart and New Endless Love. The band, which consists of volunteer brass and woodwind musicians, performs around Taiwan and abroad to promote Taiwanese music. The concert is part of a world tour by the band, which has performed in the US, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines since 2005. Band leader Meng Yi-chao (孟義超) said the group’s goal is to help the world know more about Taiwan through its performance of Taiwanese pop songs and folk music.
SOCIETY
Foot-washing event set
Nearly 13,400 people will take part in a “foot washing” activity next month that organizers hope will be included in Guinness World Records. Chang Chao-kuo (張朝國), head of a Yunlin County resident association, said 6,700 parent-child duos have registered to date for the event, which will be held in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on Oct. 12, the eve of Senior Citizens Day. The ritual demonstrates children’s appreciation of the love shown them by their parents and is a way for them to show respect, Chang said. The standard ritual calls for children to first bow to their parents, kneel to present them a cup of tea, massage and pound their backs, and then kneel on one knee to help wash their feet, the association said.
AGRICULTURE
Pre-festival imports boosted
Given the increased vegetables prices in the wake of heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Kong-Rey late last month, the Council of Agriculture plans to help agricultural groups import 2,080 tonnes of vegetable from overseas before the Mid-Autumn Festival on Thursday next week. The heavy rainfall caused serious crop damage, and as demand for vegetables is expected to increase during the holiday, the council said it has already released 882 tonnes cabbages and Chinese cabbages kept refrigerated by agricultural groups and increased the supply of root and tuber vegetables to the fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Taipei since Aug. 21. An additional 120 tonnes of root and tuber vegetables, such as carrots, radishes and onions will be released before the holiday, it said. Vegetables have been ordered from overseas and the council said it communicated with the relevant agencies to shorten the period of time needed for border inspection, so that the vegetables can reach the market as soon as possible. The Agriculture and Food Agency said the imports — from the US, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, China and elsewhere, include cabbage, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, onions, pumpkins and radishes.
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