HOUSING
CPA plans Taoyuan units
The central government is aiming to build a public housing project in Taoyuan to help young adults acquire their own homes, a Ministry of the Interior agency said yesterday. The Construction and Planning Agency (CPA) said 20,000 units would be built near the Taoyuan Aerotropolis and along the route of the Taoyuan International Airport MRT for sale at affordable prices. In a report to the Cabinet, the agency said if the people who buy the units want to sell them later, the government will have first right to buy them back, or to set the prices and designate the buyers to prevent the units from ending up on the open market. Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) told yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that the core of the government’s housing policy is to achieve basic human rights, as stipulated in the Constitution, by creating a livable and dignified housing environment for all the people in the nation, while gradually moving toward the goal of housing justice.
TRAVEL
Australia targeting runners
A marathon along Australia’s famed Gold Coast will be the centerpiece of that nation’s latest tourism campaign in Taiwan as more Taiwanese are becoming interested in running events overseas, Queensland tourism officials said yesterday in Taipei. The annual Gold Coast Airport Marathon is seeing more runners from Taiwan, a momentum Australia hopes to capitalize on, said Kimberly Chien (簡明芬), marketing manager for Tourism Queensland’s local office. Since the office started promoting sports tourism activities about two years ago, more Taiwanese have shown an interest in the Gold Coast marathon, Chien said. She said 438 Taiwanese were among the 36,000 participants in last year’s race. Online registration for this year’s event, to be held July 4 and July 5, will continue through July 3, the office said, adding that 240 Taiwanese have already signed up. Chien said 111,000 Taiwanese tourists visited Australia last year.
SOCIETY
Bees invade jeans
Kaohsiung firefighters on Wednesday were called out to a Nanzih District (楠梓) home to remove thousands of bees that had clustered in a pair of the homeowner’s jeans hanging on a clothesline in a shed, apparently trying to build a hive. The man told firefighters that he had hung up his jeans on Sunday night and had discovered the swarm of bees on Tuesday after heavy overnight rain. Officials said nearly 4,000 bees were clinging to the jeans and firefighters were able to place the pair of jeans in a large plastic bag without disturbing the swarm. The firefighters then went to a nearby field and released the bee, without causing them any harm, authorities said.
HEALTH
Researchers announce find
National Taiwan University researchers have recently identified the key compound for the development of opioid tolerance. The researchers found that CXCL1, a protein produced by spinal cord tissue, contributes to opioid tolerance. “By neutralizing CXCL1 in patients, we might help solve the problem of opioid tolerance,” said Lin Chih-peng (林至芃), an assistant professor in the university’s Department of Anesthesiology. Once opioid tolerance is suppressed, doctors can help patients achieve prolonged pain relief without the side effects of increased dosages, he said. The findings by Lin and his colleagues were published in the March edition of the medical journal Anesthesiology.
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