POLITICS
KMT’s Wu in hospital, stable
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) was found to have a minor cerebral embolism, but is in stable condition, Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) said on Tuesday. Following a health check that found Wu had a blocked artery, doctors decided that he should be hospitalized for two or three weeks, the hospital said in a statement. Wu went to Central Clinic Hospital on Monday for a health check because he felt unwell and was later transferred to TVGH’s neurological institute. After several tests, including a magnetic resonance imaging scan, it was found that he had a minor cerebral embolism. He is receiving medication and will enter a rehabilitation program, the hospital said.
LIFESTYLE
7-Eleven to open on Lanyu
President Chain Store Corp is scheduled to open its first 7-Eleven convenience chain store on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, also known as Lanyu) tomorrow, as the Taitung County Government said it has registered the business and it can begin operations. A partner of the store has issued invitations offering the first 100 customers a free cup of coffee. The opening of a 7-Eleven store on Orchid Island has caused controversy because of concern that it will displace local businesses and its failure to obtain a building permit — more than 95 percent of the buildings on the island have been built without proper permits. However, the local government said that the store has obtained a business registration certificate and can therefore begin operations. Building permits cannot be issued if the land is not first registered, the local government said.
TRAVEL
Taipei travel fair next month
Tickets for this year’s Taipei International Travel Fair (Taipei ITF 2014), which is scheduled to take place from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10 at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC), went on sale at 7-Eleven convenience stores yesterday. The Taipei ITF, the largest travel show in the nation and the most popular international travel fair in the Asia-Pacific region, is in its 22nd year. Last year, more than 900 organizations from 60 countries participated in the exhibition, occupying 1,350 exhibition booths and attracting more than 310,000 visitors. This year, the event is to cover 1,000 booths organized by 60 nations at TWTC Exhibition Hall 1 and a hotel special zone at Exhibition Hall 3, the Taiwan Visitors Association said, adding that an exhibition of bed and breakfast services and delicacies comprising 1,450 booths is to be held on the second floor of Exhibition Hall 1. A limited number of 5,000 pre-sale tickets priced at NT$150 each — a 25 percent discount — are on sale at 7-Eleven stores from yesterday through Sept. 30.
ENVIRONMENT
Brundtland makes call
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and a winner of the Tang Prize, yesterday called for stepping up the pace of promoting sustainable development. Brundtland said the world’s environment was being destroyed and she expressed hope that sustainable development could be accelerated. Speaking during a forum at Greater Kaohsiung’s National Sun Yat-sen University as part of a week of lectures and other activities in celebration of the first Tang Prize, she said the rich should be taxed more heavily and that subsidies for chemical fuels should be scrapped. She said Taiwan has a big problem of low taxation and urged the implementation of a more reasonable tax system.
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