SOCIETY
Group of 30 rescued
About 30 people who were trapped in an upstream area of the Wanli River (萬里溪) in Hualien County’s Wangrong Township (萬榮) were brought to safety yesterday after a seven-hour joint relief operation involving Red Cross rescuers and firefighters. The 30 people, including four aged only four or five, visited a river-side hot spring a day earlier. They found themselves unable to cross the river to safety and became trapped on the riverbank after heavy rain caused the river to rise rapidly. After being told of their plight yesterday morning, firefighters from nearby townships were dispatched to the area. As of 1pm, seasonal winds and weather fronts had brought more than 100mm of rainfall in 24 hours to many townships in the county, including Wanrong. The operation involved the use of ropes, rubber rafts and SUVs that were used to pull the trapped tourists to safety.
SOCIETY
Student singers win contest
Donya Francis and Rolhensha Henry of St Kitts and Nevis in Taipei yesterday won a contest for foreigners singing campus folk songs, in which more than two dozen finalists expressed their feelings and spoke about techniques in Chinese. Angel Kurniawi Chandra of Indonesia was second, while Burocher Suart Venly of Haiti took third in the contest, organized by Radio Taiwan International (RTI). All the prize winners, two men and two women, are students, either already matriculated or in language programs at universities. RTI said it held the singing contest because this year is the 40th anniversary of the advent of campus folk songs. Previously, RTI held Mandarin-language speech contests for more than a decade. Twenty-five of the 30 finalists were involved in the competition. A significant portion of the finalists come from Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Other finalists come from Australia, Belize, the Czech Republic, France, Haiti, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, the UK and the US.
CRIME
Foreign workers arrested
Ten alleged runaway foreign workers were apprehended on Saturday living in budget housing being constructed by the government alongside the not-opened A7 MRT station in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), where they had been staying for a month, police said. Acting on tipoffs, a Taoyuan police task force and labor officials took into custody nine Vietnamese workers and one Indonesian, who had been living in one of the uncompleted buildings, police said. Police said that the workers had occupied an entire floor, where they slept on the floor and erected tents to keep warm, with instant noodles, dishes, chopsticks, electric fans and cupboards scattered around. Most of them were illegally hired by a subcontractor as cleaners, police said, adding that they will be deported in line with the Employment Services Act (就業服務法) and immigration laws after an investigation into the contractors and brokers is complete.
SOCIETY
Vampire film wins award
A short film about an Italian vampire and a Taiwanese taxi driver won the NT$50,000 top prize at the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival yesterday. The Thrill (顫慄) by Taiwanese director Hou Chi-jan (侯季然) grabbed the “Thong Award” at the festival, according to the Taiwan International Media and Educational Association, which organized the event for the second year.
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