TRANSPORT
MRT tickets go multilingual
Commuters taking the Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT line are to have the option of choosing from eight languages, in addition to traditional and simplified Chinese, when purchasing a ticket, Taoyuan Metro Corp said. The ticketing system on the line linking Taipei Main Station to the Taoyuan airport is also to provide ticketing options in English, Japanese, Korean, German, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai and Spanish, it said. Passengers will be able to select their preferred language to access the information they want, the company said. The opening of the airport MRT line, mainly invested by the Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan city governments, has been postponed several times for various reasons, but has now been rescheduled to start operations at the end of this year.
CRIME
US official targets trafficking
US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Susan Coppedge is to arrive in Taiwan today to boost cooperation against human trafficking with Taiwan, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. Coppedge, who is also a senior adviser to the US secretary of state, is to meet with Taiwanese officials and local nongovernmental organizations to discuss measures against trafficking in persons and how Taiwan can increase its anti-trafficking efforts, the AIT said. During her four-day stay, Coppedge is also to deliver keynote remarks at this year’s International Workshop on Strategies for Combating Human Trafficking, the AIT said.
DIPLOMACY
Tsai thanks Solomons PM
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday expressed appreciation to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare for his country’s solid and long-term support of Taiwan in the international community. Sogavare, who is on his fifth visit to Taiwan, met with Tsai at the Presidential Office Building. He said his country would continue to speak up for Taiwan at the UN and elsewhere in the international community, adding that Taiwan could play a bigger role on the international stage. The prime minister, who is on an official visit until Sunday, is the first foreign head of government to visit Taiwan since Tsai’s inauguration on May 20, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Taiwan and the Solomon Islands have had diplomatic relations for 33 years and maintain close cooperation in areas such as medical care, educational training, clean energy and agricultural technology, the ministry said.
SPORT
Runner banned from Rio
Long-distance runner Hsu Yu-fang (許玉芳) was banned from participating in the Rio Olympics after failing a doping test, Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee officials said yesterday. The 42-year-old marathon runner, Taiwan’s national record holder, was notified that a diuretic was found in her sample on Friday last week. Hsu said she was “sorry for disappointing friends who supported her now that she will not be able to take part in the Rio Olympics.” Hsu said in a statement that she has been taking medication over the past few months for injuries sustained during a marathon in North Korea in early April, and three substances in the traditional Chinese medicine she had been prescribed had a diuretic effect. Hsu had been banned for two years for failing a drug test in 2011 and this time could be banned for up to four years in accordance with the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
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