SOCIETY
Death penalty to be mulled
Albie Sachs, a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and winner of the first Tang Prize in Rule of Law, is to attend a Taipei conference organized by the Taipei Bar Association today to discuss whether the death penalty should be abolished. Sachs arrived on Tuesday for a five-day visit. The 79-year-old gave a keynote speech on Wednesday at National Central University on transitional justice and how South Africa began its path toward democracy. Sachs is to leave Taiwan tomorrow. Before departing, he is scheduled to attend the launch of a book telling the stories of the five Tang Prize winners from last year.
ENERGY
Taiwan, Canada sign MOU
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed earlier this week to advance cooperation between the Taiwanese and Canadian clean energy industries, the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei said on Wednesday. The MOU was signed between the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association and the Green Trade Project Office on Monday, during a two-day hydrogen fuel-cell conference in Vancouver, the trade office said in a statement. The arrangement is aimed at expanding bilateral cooperation on fuel-cell development for back-up power applications, as a power supply for vehicles and as a stationary power supply for buildings, the trade office said. The biennial conference is hosted by the association to increase awareness of the economic, environmental and social benefits of hydrogen fuel cells. It brings together experts in clean energy-related industries for discussion on challenges, innovations and initiatives around the world.
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