AGRICULTURE
Expo trial run attracts 17,000
About 17,000 people visited the trial run of the Yunlin Agriculture Expo yesterday, the opening of its two-day rehearsal. The three-month expo is scheduled to open on Dec. 25. It is one of the biggest exhibitions of agricultural products in Taiwan. The trial run, which is taking place in Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾), has attracted large crowds to its six display areas, which cover carbon sequestration, a “happy farm,” agriculture-related products, food and fashion, along with a “creative zone.” Some visitors praised the organizers for applying environmental friendly materials to its buildings, while others said better arrangements are needed. There were also complaints that traffic control near the venue was too tight, with some visitors complaining that damaged facilities, withering plants and the lack of road signs made the trip less pleasant. In response, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) said her team would make improvements before the expo opens.
ENTERTAINMENT
TV personality divorces
Popular TV personality Belle Yu (于美人) signed a divorce settlement agreement on Friday, concluding her 16-year marriage with James Wang. After six months of tumult, which made the headlines of Chinese-language media outlets, Yu and Wang agreed to a settlement, following nearly six hours of negotiations in court. Yu was reported by her lawyer as describing the whole process as “a misunderstanding that has been resolved and merry parting.” The 48-year-old celebrity and her husband both quashed suits against each other and agreed not to divide their property, leaving only one issue unresolved — the legal guardianship of their children, according to sources. The family quarrel came as a shock to many, as Yu had maintained an impression of success in both her professional and personal lives. Yu and Wang married in 1997 and gave birth to boy-girl twins three years later.
SPORTS
Cycling most popular sport
Cycling surpassed baseball as the most the nation’s popular sport this year based on the frequency the names of different sports “popped up” on the Internet, according to a recent study released by OpView cloud monitoring platform. The finding was based on a computer screening of 2.01 million netizen posts on sports during the period between January last year and November this year. Using content analysis and automated semantic analysis, computers picked out the 10 most popular sports nationwide from discussions on more than 5,000 social networking Web sites including blogs, forums and Facebook, OpView said. The other nine most popular sports or types of exercise of the year are baseball, running, working out, basketball, swimming, hiking, dancing, soccer and yoga in that order.
DIPLOMACY
AIT official appointed
Joseph Donovan Jr, a US career diplomat who is to become managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) early next year, said on Wednesday that he will do his best to advance Taiwan-US ties. Donovan is to be in charge of day-to-day operations at the AIT headquarters in Washington after incumbent AIT Managing Director Barbara Schrage retires in the first half of next month. Donovan is familiar with Taiwan-US engagement as he once served as acting deputy director and chief of the political section at the AIT Taipei Office and director of the AIT Kaohsiung Office.
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