NATIONAL DEFENSE
Promotions announced
A total of 28 military officials and officers are to be promoted to the ranks of lieutenant general or major general, according to a list released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense. Among them, five are to be promoted to lieutenant general and 23 to major general, including Colonel Chen Yu-lin (陳育琳), director of the political warfare department in the Matsu Defense Command in Lienchiang County, the ministry said. Chen, an army colonel, is the only woman on the promotion list this year. She is set to be the seventh female major general in the history of the nation’s military. A ceremony is set for tomorrow to promote the 28 officials and officers, and is to be hosted by Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) and attended by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the ministry said.
ENTERTAINMENT
New Year’s fireworks set
Taipei Financial Center Corp, which operates Taipei 101, announced on Tuesday that the tower’s annual New Year’s Eve fireworks show is set to take place as scheduled, now that it has found a sponsor. This year’s NT$38 million (US$1.2 million) fireworks spectacular is to be sponsored by the iSee Taiwan Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at raising the nation’s global visibility, which was founded by entrepreneur Sayling Wen (溫世仁) in 2003. The fireworks are expected to last 218 seconds when they start at midnight. The fate of this year’s show had been in doubt after Wei Ying-chiao (魏應交) — chairman of scandal-ridden Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), a major shareholder in Taipei 101 — resigned from his post as vice chairman and president of Taipei Financial Center in late October.
ELECTIONS
Online poll for schedule
The Central Election Commission said it plans to solicit public opinion through an online poll on whether to hold the 2016 presidential and legislative elections on the same day. The commission said it would also seek the opinions of major political parties and hold public hearings in northern, central and southern Taiwan over the issue. The commission Web site will accept responses from the public on whether to schedule the elections on the same day or different days at http://www.cec.gov.tw from today until Jan. 15. As the current legislative term is to end on Jan. 31, 2016, new legislative elections must be completed by Jan. 21, 2016. President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) second and final term is to expire on May 20, 2016, making the next presidential election necessary before April 19, 2016.
GOVERNMENT
Taoyuan marks upgrade
Taoyuan County is today commemorating its upgrade as the nation’s sixth special municipality with performances and other festivities, as well as 3,000 free T-shirts. With a population of nearly 2.06 million, Taoyuan is set to become the fifth most-populous municipality in the nation. Taoyuan mayor-elect Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) is to be sworn in at 9am and begin his first day at the head of the nation’s youngest municipal government. Newly appointed heads of Taoyuan’s 12 districts — formerly cities and townships — are to be sworn in at 9:30am, along with municipal department and bureau heads. On Tuesday, Cheng posted a photograph on Facebook of the T-shirts, which feature the word “invincible” in English in large block letters underneath: “New Taoyuan, New Future,” the city seal and the logo for local baseball team, the Lamigo Monkeys.
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