EDUCATION
Graduate students to get aid
The government will provide up to NT$1 million (US$33,400) per person in subsidies to doctoral students whose research presents solutions to the problems in the nation’s industrial sector, the Ministry of Education said. The program aims to encourage cooperation between the industrial and the academic sectors by fostering research and development by doctoral students, starting this academic year, the ministry said. Department of Higher Education Deputy Director Ma Hsiang-ping (馬湘萍) said that the jobless rate among people with doctorates nationally averages 5 percent. The ministry is launching the subsidy program also to help upgrade the competitiveness of doctorate holders and narrow the gap between their studies and job opportunities, Ma said. He said that if doctoral students could acquire practical research and development experience in the industrial sector, they will gain a competitive edge when they graduate and begin to look for jobs. As an incentive, each doctoral student will be eligible to a subsidy of NT$200,000 per year for up to five years, Ma said.
CRIME
DVD store owner nabbed
Police have arrested a DVD rental shop owner in Greater Kaohsiung for allegedly violating the Copyright Act (著作權法), police said yesterday. During raids on the two shops owned by a man, surnamed Lin, police seized 275 pirated movies and disc burners. Police estimated the value of the alleged copyright infringements at NT$10 million. They said they received complaints in July by men who said they paid NT$40 to rent blockbuster DVDs from Lin’s shops and found them to be of poor quality. Officers then posed as patrons, rented DVDs from the shop and sent them to Deltamac (Taiwan) Co, the distributor of the movies, for identification. The company said the DVDs were unauthorized copies.
HEALTH
Dengue cases hit record
The number of dengue fever cases increased by 233 last week through Saturday, setting a single-week high in infections of the mosquito-borne disease since 2003, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said 228 of the cases were in Greater Kaohsiung, showing that the situation in the city is still stark after heavy rains last month. Three cases were reported in Pingtung County, while one each was reported in Chiayi and Taoyuan County. All except two of the Pingtung cases were people who had recently traveled to Greater Kaohsiung. CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said that the dengue fever outbreak is still at its peak, adding that 1,352 cases have been reported in the nation this year.
ENTERTAINMENT
Band battle set for Saturday
Six of the nation’s best new bands are to compete on Saturday at International Community Radio Taipei’s (ICRT) eighth annual Battle of the Bands at Taipei New Horizon (臺北文創) in Taipei’s Songshan Cultural Park. The six won out from among more than 100 bands to enter the contest for independent contestants who have not signed deals with record labels. Cindy is falling, Orientone, KyRa RAY, General Vinyl, Ultraviolet and Gina’s Can were picked as finalists. Judges include Team Ear Music executive manager Zhong Chen-hu (鍾成虎), Cheng Fong-sheng (虎神) of Quarterback and producer and Rock’n’Rap guitarist Swing Wang (王斯禹). The battle is to be held from 3pm to 7pm.
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