ENVIRONMENT
Bureau targets mosquitoes
Preventing the spread of dengue fever is likely to become a priority for environmental authorities in Kaohsiung as summer approaches, officials said yesterday. The Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau said it would step up prevention measures beginning in June by sending a 120-person team every Wednesday to clean up possible mosquito breeding grounds, including 40 manholes and box culverts across the city, rather than collect garbage. Last year, Kaohsiung was hit by the nation’s severest dengue fever outbreak since 2012, with more than 2,000 cases reported. The bureau assured residents that it could handle its sanitation responsibilities despite reducing the frequency of garbage collections. It said the city collects garbage every day apart from Sunday, while other metropolitan areas, such as Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung and Tainan, collect garbage five days per week. Dengue fever is an infectious tropical disease spread by mosquitoes. The symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, and skin rash.
ENTERTAINMENT
Shinhwa announce Taipei gig
Shinhwa, one of the most renowned boy bands in South Korea, are scheduled to hold a concert in Taipei on May 16 as part of a tour to celebrate their 17th anniversary this year. The concert is scheduled to take place at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall. It is part of the band’s Asia tour that is due to begin in Shanghai on May 9. Since their debut in 1998, Shinhwa have released 12 studio albums, the most recent being We. The band members are known for their upbeat music and energetic dance routines. Their hit songs include Perfect Man, Only One and Once in a Lifetime.
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