TOURISM
Travel fair targets the public
A travel fair targeting Taiwanese who plan to travel during the Lunar New Year holiday opened yesterday with the participation of some 200 exhibitors. Travel agencies, hotel operators and restaurants are at the show pitching deals for travel during the Feb. 18 to Feb. 23 Lunar New Year period, according to the organizers. Now in its fifth year, the International Winter Travel Fair is set to run through Monday and is expected to draw over 170,000 visitors organizer Chou Tsen said. He estimated that it would create NT$410 million (US$12.8 million) worth of business.
HEALTH
Flu season starts
The confirmed infection rate of influenza surged over the past week to 12.1 percent from 3.7 percent the week before, indicating flu season is approaching its peak, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Taiwan has officially entered flu season since the rate has surpassed the 10 percent threshold, meaning 10 out of every 100 patients with flu-like symptoms are confirmed to be infected, explained CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥). When the rate hits 20 percent, it means that the flu season has reached a peak, he added. According to Chuang, the dominant virus strain is Influenza A virus subtype H3N2, which is similar to the recent outbreak in the US. The CDC urged the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible because it takes about two weeks for the antibodies to develop in the body after vaccination. Senior citizens, young children and anyone with chronic medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, chronic renal disease or diabetes are at a higher risk of flu complications such as pneumonia, bronchitis and even death. CDC data showed 55 cases of severe flu-related complications since August last year, including 14 deaths among people with chronic conditions.
TOURISM
Holiday packages touted
Officials from Taichung and neighboring county governments yesterday promoted various package tours to central Taiwan coinciding with the upcoming Taiwan Lantern Festival, hoping to attract more visitors to the region. Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Changhua County Deputy Magistrate Chen Shan-pao (陳善報) introduced the tours at a news conference in Taichung yesterday. Bus tours and other package tours, both with and without accommodation, are available for domestic and international tourists, to making visiting Taichung, Changhua and Nantou easier, they said. This year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival is scheduled to be held in three areas in the Taichung metropolitan area — Fengyuan District (豐原), Taichung Park and Wuri District (烏日) — from Feb. 27 to March 15. The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar New Year, or March 5 this year.
ENTERTAINMENT
France holds workshop
Ten Taiwanese film directors, producers and screenwriters have been invited to participate in a two-day workshop in Paris next week, to seek co-production opportunities with their counterparts in France. The workshop is a collaboration among Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, Golden Horse Film Project Promotion and France’s National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image. Fve Taiwanese film projects have been selected to join the workshop, which will take place at the center on Thursday and Friday next week.
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