SOCIETY
Koala babies to debut
Three newborn koalas are expected to make their debut at Taipei Zoo three months from now after they were discovered in their mothers’ pouches, zoo officials said. Zookeepers found the joeys during an examination of the three female koalas on April 14, 35 days after they mated. The gestation period for koalas is about 35 days, after which newborn joeys crawl into their mothers’ pouches, where they nurse for up to six months. Zoo staff helped the adult koalas mate in March after seeing them climbing down from trees and walking backward, signs they were entering heat. With the news likely to draw crowds, zoo officials asked the public to keep the noise down around the koala enclosure so as not to disturb the mothers tending to the joeys.
SOCIETY
Paper pandas ‘adopted’
More than 200 paper pandas from an exhibition held earlier this year have been purchased since they were put up for “adoption” on April 24 to raise funds for wildlife protection, organizers said yesterday. The paper pandas, along with about 80 paper Formosan black bears displayed in an exhibition in March, have found homes in Taiwan, according to the Taiwan Environmental Info Association. A total of 1,100 of the pandas and 100 bears were on offer in the project, which is aimed at raising awareness of environmental issues, it said, adding that there have been many inquiries about the program, which asks for a NT$6,000 donation for each panda, created by French papier-mache artist Paulo Grangeon. In a joint campaign with the Taipei City Government, Grangeon showcased 1,600 paper pandas to remind people that just 1,600 giant pandas remain in the wild. The free exhibition attracted more than 3 million visitors, the city government said.
HEALTH
Enterovirus cases reported
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Thursday reported the year’s first severe complications arising from enterovirus infection and urged better personal hygiene to prevent the spread of the disease. A nine-month-old girl has been confirmed infected with coxsackievirus A2, the centers said. Her condition has stabilized since she began showing symptoms of infection late last month. Coxsackie A is currently the dominant strain of enterovirus circulating around Taiwan, according to centers data, causing hand, foot and mouth disease, and skin rashes. Last year, a total of 12 cases of enterovirus infection with serious complications were confirmed, according to the data. The centers warned that infants and children under five are at an increased risk of infection and complications. Children showing symptoms such as a persistent fever, drowsiness, inactivity or continuous vomiting should be taken to a doctor to check for the virus, the centers advised.
ACCIDENT
Woman dies in car crash
A Taiwanese woman died in a car crash in Singapore on Thursday that also killed the driver and injured three other Taiwanese passengers. A 33-year-old Singaporean man was driving the car and the 29-year-old Taiwanese woman was sitting in the front of the vehicle when it lost control on the way to Changi Airport, Singaporean media reported. Singaporean police informed the Taipei Representative Office in Singapore of the incident, adding that the cause of the incident was not immediately clear. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Anne Kao (高安) said the ministry would contact the families of the four Taiwanese to provide assistance to the victims and the families.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift