MEDIA
Tsai nominee on Time list
President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is among the 127 nominees for Time magazine’s annual list of “the 100 most influential people” for this year. As of Wednesday last week, Tsai was ranked within the top 30, garnering 1.2 percent of votes in an online poll by readers of the magazine, tied with US singer Beyonce and Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg. Tsai was ahead of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (1.1 percent), US Vice President Joe Biden (1 percent), Apple CEO Tim Cook (1 percent) and US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton (0.9 percent). Leading the poll was US Senator Bernie Sanders, another Democratic presidential candidate, who has garnered 4.3 percent of votes. Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi (2.8 percent), South Korean boy band Big Bang (2.1 percent), US President Barack Obama (2 percent) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousufzai (1.9 percent) rounded out the top five. In sixth through 10th place were Pope Francis (1.7 percent), US singer Lady Gaga (1.7 percent), US first lady Michelle Obama (1.7 percent), US actor Leonardo DiCaprio (1.6 percent) and British actress Emma Watson (1.5 percent).
DIPLOMACY
Allies to attend inauguration
Leaders of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific region are scheduled to attend the May 20 presidential inauguration, a foreign affairs official said yesterday. I-Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, Nauruan President Baron Waqa, Palauan President Tommy Remengesau, Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, Marshallese President Hilda Heine and Solomon Islands Governor-General Frank Kabui are to lead delegations to attend the ceremony, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Director-General Elliot Charng (常以立) said at a regular news briefing. President-elect Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party is to become Taiwan’s first female president when she is inaugurated, succeeding President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The six countries are among Taiwan’s 22 diplomatic allies, half of which are in Central America and the Caribbean.
SECURITY
Tugboat crew kidnapped
Ten Indonesian crew members on board a Taiwanese-owned tugboat have been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines, Philippine military officials said late on Monday. No Taiwanese nationals were on the ship, the officials said. The boat was hijacked on Sunday near the province of Tawi-Tawi in the southern Philippines on its way from Jakarta to Manila, the officials said, adding the crew were kidnapped and asked to call the boat’s owner in Taiwan to demand an undisclosed sum. According to sources, the Philippine military has located the boat at Port Languyan, Tawi-Tawi, and believes that the crew are being held captive on Basilan Island in the Sulu Archipelago, where Abu Sayyaf militants are active. Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Armanatha Nasir yesterday confirmed that the tugboat Brahma 12, flying an Indonesian flag, had been recovered by the Philippine government, but its 10 Indonesian crew members were still being held captive. Armanatha said his ministry did not know exactly where the crew members were and that the top priority at the moment is to ensure their safety. The kidnappers have indeed demanded a ransom, he said, citing information from the ship’s owner.
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