ENVIRONMENT
WRA to mull water rationing
The Water Resources Agency (WRA) is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss whether to impose first-stage water rationing as a result of lower than average rainfall over the past few months. The water supply in Kaohsiung, Hsinchu, Taoyuan and New Taipei City’s Linkou (林口), Banqiao (板橋) and Xinzhuang (新莊) districts was categorized as “green” earlier this month, suggesting a tight water supply, leading to the implementation of water conservation measures, the agency said, adding that from November last year to Friday last week, about 120 million cubic meters of water were saved nationwide through the measures. However, reserves at the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan, Nanhua Reservoir (南化水庫) in Tainan and Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) in Chiayi County were down to less than 60 percent capacity as of Wednesday, the agency said.
TOURISM
Philippine tourists increase
The number of visitor arrivals from the Philippines last year totaled 172,475, an almost 24 percent year-on-year increase, which the Tourism Bureau attributed to the nation’s streamlined visa procedures for Philippine nationals and tourism promotion efforts. Of the total, 48,198 Philippine visitors came for tourism, a nearly 60 percent increase from 2015, bureau statistics showed. Other reasons for visiting included business trips (6,551), visiting relatives (4,843) and attending meetings (3,238), the bureau said. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines attributed the overall increase to measures to streamline visa procedures for Philippine citizens, as well as the bureau’s efforts to promote tourism at travel fairs in the nation.
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