WEATHER
Taitung records year high
Temperatures in Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武) rose to 38.7oC yesterday, the highest in the nation this year, according to the Central Weather Bureau. Foehn winds, warm and dry gusts that descend the sheltered side of mountains sent the mercury soaring at about noon, setting the high at 12:12pm, weather experts said. Taipei and New Taipei City also saw maximum temperatures above 35oC thanks to a strong Pacific high-pressure system, the bureau said. Similar weather could continue into today, the bureau said, adding however it might be replaced by stormy weather later tomorrow due to an approaching low-pressure front.
DIPLOMACY
US visa program renewed
The US has affirmed the renewal of Taiwan’s participation in its visa-waiver program. In a statement released yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it welcomes a letter from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) that affirms the renewal of Taiwan’s participation in the program. The notification came after the US last year sent inspectors to examine whether Taiwan is in compliance with security and information-sharing requirements, the ministry said. The AIT said on Tuesday that the renewal process would take place every two years. The renewal “underscores the fact that Taiwan continues to comply with key security and information-sharing requirements, and that the partnership between the United States and Taiwan remains strong,” the AIT said in a post on Facebook. Taiwan is one of 38 members of the US’ Visa Waiver Program, which allows people traveling on passports from participating nations to enter the US without a visa for leisure or business trips lasting 90 days or fewer, the AIT said.
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