TRANSPORT
TRA unveils new lunchbox
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday introduced “Baby Tree” boxed meals, a new lunchbox oriented at passengers who are vegetarians. The railway operator said the new boxed meals are scheduled to go on sale at Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung railway stations, as well as Wuri (烏日) Station in Taichung, at 12pm tomorrow, when the nation observes Tree Planting Day. Each station will sell only 100 of the vegetarian lunchboxes, it added. Different from vegetarian lunchboxes the TRA has sold in the past, the Baby Tree lunchbox features more vegetables, such as apricot abalone mushrooms, ginkgos and small tomatoes, as well as kumquats. People who buy two Baby Tree lunchboxes will receive a Baby Tree coin bank, the TRA said.
NATURE
Video shows buzzard feast
The Taipei Zoo on Monday released a video of crested honey buzzards feasting on a hornet hive at the zoo. The video first shows an intact 1m-long hive, hanging from a tree in the zoo, which keepers said had been there since last year. Then a buzzard pecks at pupae and eggs from the hive, with the interior exposed after several buzzards attacked the hive, leaving a large hole. The zoo said the buzzards did not attack the hive until early last month. One buzzard was caught on video eating from the hive with his body upside-down. The zoo said it was the first time it has captured the rare birds feasting on a hornet hive on its premises. To counter the hornets’ defenses, the buzzards attacked as a group, taking turns assaulting the hive or creating a diversion so that other birds could attack. Researchers said the birds used to pass through Taiwan each year with other migratory birds of prey.
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