CULTURE
Islamic exhibition opens
An exhibition showcasing cultural and religious objects from the Islamic world opened yesterday in Taipei, aiming at advancing the public’s understanding of Muslim life and culture. The Exhibition of Islamic Life and Culture at the National Taiwan Museum displays more than 200 items, including precious manuscripts of the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, the museum said. It also features clothes, tapestries and other everyday objects used by Muslims. “This is the first comprehensive Islamic exhibition in Taiwan,” National Taiwan Museum director Chen Chi-ming (陳濟民) said. Although Muslims make up approximately 25 percent of the world’s population, Chen said the general public in Taiwan is very unfamiliar with Islamic culture and he expressed the hope that the exhibition would help change that. The exhibition is jointly organized by the museum, the Taiwan Association of Islamic Studies and National Chengchi University. It is to run through June 22.
TOURISM
Travel alerts downgraded
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that its travel alert for two areas in the Philippines ravaged separately by an earthquake and typhoon have been downgraded to the lowest-level gray warning. The ministry had previously issued higher alerts for Bohol province, which was hit by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Oct. 15, and central islands such as Boracay and Cebu, which were battered by Typhoon Haiyan on Nov. 8 last year. However, the two areas have largely recovered after reconstruction efforts, which led to a downgrade of the travel alert from yellow to gray, the ministry said. A gray alert is simply a reminder to Taiwanese to be careful when traveling to the destination.
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