CULTURE
Changhua calls for artwork
An art competition in Changhua County has begun soliciting submissions in six categories: oil and watercolor painting; 3D crafts; photography; digital arts; calligraphy and seal engraving; and Chinese ink and gouache painting. The first prize in each category at the 18th Huangsi Art Exhibition is to be a trophy and NT$100,000, while the best of the six first prizes is to receive the Huangsi Award and an additional NT$300,000, the Changhua County Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau said. The bureau will accept submissions from Republic of China citizens from March 24 to April 5. Since 2000, artists from all walks of life and of all ages have taken part in the competition, the bureau said, adding that last year’s winner in the 3D crafts category was an inmate at a local jail.
CRIME
Police detain pickpockets
Five South Korean nationals caught pickpocketing at the Taipei 101 shopping mall on Saturday have been detained and held incommunicado, Taipei District Court officials said. A court judge upheld a request for their detainment by Taipei district prosecutors, who said the South Koreans could pose a flight risk. Police said they had been on the trail of a group of South Korean pickpockets after receiving several reports of thefts during the Lunar New Year holiday in late January and early last month. A special team was organized to probe the case, police added. On Jan. 29, three members of the group stole more than NT$30,000 from people near Taipei Railway Station, dividing up the spoils on the spot and leaving Taiwan soon after, police said. When they learned that the three suspects had returned to Taiwan on March 3 with two other women, the team began following them, leading to their capture, police said.
CRIME
Authorities kill drug dealer
A Taiwanese man suspected of drug dealing in Indonesia was shot dead by local authorities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Sunday. The man, surnamed Kao (高), was killed by Indonesian police while resisting arrest, the ministry said, adding that an accomplice surnamed Liu, who was also seen at the scene of the crime, was arrested on suspicion of dealing drugs. The ministry confirmed the incident after receiving information from the nation’s representative office in Indonesia. As of press time last night, further details about the death and arrest of the Taiwanese have yet to be established. The ministry said it respects the ongoing investigation by Indonesian authorities, adding that further information would be disclosed after its completion.
GENDER EQUALITY
Women feel ill-treated: poll
Women in Taiwan still do not feel they are generally treated fairly in the workplace, particularly after they get married or become pregnant, the results of an online survey released by 1111 Job Bank on Monday showed. Among the married women or women with children surveyed in the poll, 47 percent said they had been treated in an unfriendly manner by their bosses or colleagues after they got married or became pregnant. The survey also found that 74 percent of the polled women changed their career plans because of marriage or pregnancy, with more than half changing jobs to better adjust to family life and one-fifth resigning to become full-time mothers. The survey questioned 1,111 women who are married or have children from Feb. 17 to Friday last week. A total of 809 valid samples were collected, with a margin of error of 2.96 percentage points.
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