The Taipei Department of Environmental Protection said it has amended a bylaw that would raise the monetary reward for informants who provide evidence of people who do not pick up their dog’s mess or who graffiti public infrastructure or building exteriors from 75 percent to 90 percent of the fines levied on offenders, meaning each informant could receive up to NT$5,400 for each violation reported.
Sanitation Inspection Division official Hsiao Yung-chi (蕭永祺) said people who are negligent in cleaning up after their pets or who spray graffiti are in breach of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) and would incur a fine of between NT$1,200 and NT$6,000.
Hsiao said that people are encouraged to provide video footage or photographs of violations, as well as the date and time, to the department or via its Web site.
Hsiao called on people not to worry retaliation by the peoplke they report, as the department would guarantee their privacy.
Hsiao said the department had also added a new regulation to the bylaw that would benefit people who report on those who do not empty containers that accumulate water on their properties or who have stagnant water in their basements, increasing the risk of mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus and spreading dengue fever.
Informants who provide documented evidence of people with stagnant water at their homes would be awarded a sum equivalent to 75 percent of a possible fine ranging from NT$1,200 to NT$6,000, as would those reporting people who dump trash improperly, Hsiao said.
The reward for informants who report on illegal garbage disposal was previously set at 50 percent of fines levied.
Hsiao said that the new rule targeting graffiti is scheduled to come into effect next month, while the rules targeting illegal garbage disposal, stagnant water and pet owners who do not clean up after their animals would likely be implemented in June after they are passed at a city policy meeting.
However, statistics released by the department indicated that it might be difficult for any evidence provided to lead to a fine.
Last year, the department handed out 9,266 fines to people who illegally disposed of their garbage, 317 to pet owners who did not clean up after their animals and 42 to those who sprayed paint on public and private properties.
Of all the fines imposed, only 14 fines for illegal garbage disposal and one to a pet owner were attributed to informants, which saw the department hand out less than NT$20,000 in monetary rewards, Hsiao 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