TECHNOLOGY
Fiber-home link launched
The Taipei City Government on Tuesday announced the launch of a new city government-sponsored “Fiber to the Home” (光纖到府) broadband system. While previous broadband connections had to pass through relatively slow copper telephone wires before entering the faster fiber-optic cable network, the new system extends the fiber-optic cables directly into homes and businesses, providing a more reliable service at up to 10 times the speed of existing connections, the city’s Department of Information Technology said. The department said the new system will also help drive down the cost of broadband services by providing competition for Chunghwa Telecom on end line connections. The service started on Tuesday in the Nangang (南港) and Neihu (內湖) districts, with Songshan (松山) and Xinyi (信義) districts expected to be connected within two months and the rest of the city by the end of the year.
CHARITY
Students walk for water
Students from National Changhua Senior High School launched a walking event on Wednesday to raise money to build a reservoir in Swaziland and urge the public to better manage water resources. The school said that about 80 students and Janine Maxwell, founder of Heart for Africa — an international organization that provides water, food, shelter, healthcare and education to people in Swaziland — will walk 100km over five days during the campaign titled “Walk for Water.” The school, which has been holding the event since 2011, said it has raised NT$5 million (US$163,000) so far, helping complete 80 percent of the reservoir’s construction. Upon completion, the reservoir will have a capacity of 300 million liters, providing local people with better access to what is often a scarce resource.
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