CRIME
Patricide suspect detained
The Greater Kaohsiung police yesterday received a telephone call from a man who wanted to turn himself in after allegedly stabbing his father to death in Fongshan District (鳳山). Police said the 23-year-old suspect, surnamed Tseng (曾), told them he was unhappy with his father’s frequent abuse of his mother. Tseng claimed his father had threatened to kill his mother several days previously, police said. They said the suspect claimed he had stabbed his father four times in the abdomen as he slept. Tseng was taken into custody for further questioning.
SOCIETY
S Korean actress honored
South Korean actress Lee Young-ae will be awarded the Love of Lives Medal by the Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation for her generous donation to help a Taiwanese family stranded in Seoul pay off a hospital bill so they could return home, foundation founder Chou Chin-hua (周進華) said. The foundation described Lee in a statement as “a beautiful woman whose heart is even more beautiful” and praised the 43-year-old for extending her hand to people in need. The foundation plans to invite Lee to Taiwan next year to receive the medal. Lee made headlines around the nation when she donated about US$100,000 to a young couple who had racked up millions of New Taiwan dollars in medical bills after the wife slipped and fell during trip to South Korea in February, causing her to go into labor two months early.
CULTURE
Hou films on tour
An international touring retrospective of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s (侯孝賢) films will be showcased in the Washington area this month and next. The retrospective entitled, “Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien” will screen 17 films at the Freer Gallery of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the AFI Silver Theatre in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US said. Organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Taipei Cultural Center in New York and Bard College, the retrospective opened on Sunday at the Freer. It will run from Nov. 15 to 25 at the AFI Silver Theatre and from Dec. 4 to Dec. 13 at the National Gallery before concluding at the Freer on Dec. 21. Hou, 67, is a prominent figure in Taiwan’s “New Wave” cinema movement, which began during the 1980s. The movement is characterized by realistic and sympathetic portrayals of Taiwanese life, in stark contrast to the kung-fu action movies and melodramas of earlier decades.
DIPLOMACY
Dancers heading to Panama
The Taipei Folk Dance Theatre (台北民族舞團) leaves tomorrow for a tour of Panama, Honduras and El Salvador as part of an effort to increase cultural exchanges between Taiwan and its Central America allies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The troupe will give a total of six one-hour performances from Thursday to Nov. 20. The company, founded by Tsai Li-hua (蔡麗華), is celebrating its 26th anniversary this year. Works on the program by Tsai and other choreographers depict diverse elements of Taiwanese culture, including Hakka culture, Aboriginal weddings, traditional temple festivals and martial arts, the company said. Salvadorean Ambassador to Taiwan Marta Chang de Tsien said the tour would help increase mutual understanding and promote bilateral cultural exchanges. Misael Vallecille, interim charge d’affaires of the Honduras embassy, said he expected the tour to strengthen arts and cultural exchanges.
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