NATIONAL DEFENSE
Navy holds live-fire drill
The navy yesterday held a live-fire drill that included the firing of the surface-to-air Standard-2 missile from a Kidd-class destroyer in waters off eastern Taiwan. The firing of the missile from the Ma Kong was part of a drill aimed at testing the military’s maritime combat capabilities. The exercise was opened to reporters, who were aboard an accompanying 10,500-tonne Kidd-class destroyer, the Suao. In a simulated attack, the missile, which was fired at a location 60 nautical miles (111km) off Hualien County, hit a target drone after about 80 seconds in the air, the navy said. The launch of the missile was delayed for about one-and-a-half hours due to adverse weather condition as the target initially could not be launched because of high waves.
DIPLOMACY
More rice headed to Haiti
The government is donating 2,200 tonnes of rice to Haiti this year to help the Caribbean ally resolve a hunger crisis, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The rice is to be delivered in three separate shipments by the end of this month through the US Food for Peace program, according to Florencia Hsieh (謝妙宏), deputy director-general of the ministry’s Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs. Thousands of disadvantaged children and low-income families are expected to benefit from the assistance, she said. Meanwhile, the non-profit Asus Foundation has provided 1,000 tablet computers for disadvantaged children in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of an effort to narrow the digital divide, Hsieh said. While 200 of the tablets have been sent to the Digital Opportunity Center under the APEC forum, the rest will be donated to children directly through Taiwan’s overseas missions in the region, she said.
SCIENCE
Fellow wins ACS award
An associate research fellow at Academia Sinica has won an award sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) to honor outstanding young carbohydrate scientists. Wu Chung-yi (吳宗益), who works at the Genomics Research Center, has been elected winner of the David Y. Gin New Investigator Award, Academia Sinica said in a statement yesterday. The award was established in 2003 to “recognize a younger carbohydrate scientist who has demonstrated excellence in the field, and shows promise continuing to make quality contributions to carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry,” the statement said. Wu, the first Taiwanese to receive the award, has dedicated himself to research into the development of novel and efficient methodologies for the preparation of biologically potent oligosaccharides, Academia Sinica said. Oligosaccharides are carbohydrates composed of a small number of simple sugars.
SOCIETY
Taipei hosting Color Run
Runners in Taipei will paint the town red — and a host of other colors — when the city holds its first Color Run tomorrow. A festival of colored paint and a 5km run rolled into one, the Color Run hopes to capitalize on growing interest in running, organizers said earlier this week. Professional coaches from Nike will be on hand to lead participants in warmup exercises before they take off from Dajia Riverside Park, organizer IME Worldwide said. Each kilometer of the track is celebrated with a shower of colored powder and sideline events, a model billed as “the happiest 5k on the planet.” Music will be provided by DJ Noodle and the street dance group PHD will also entertain the crowd.
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