HEALTH
Pingtung farm culls ducks
A duck farm in Pingtung County has been confirmed to be infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus, leading to the culling of 2,406 birds, the Pingtung Couty Animal Disease Control Center said yesterday. The center said it was conducting its regular avian flu checks of poultry farms when it found suspicious ducks at the farm in Fangliao Township (枋寮). After checking tissue samples, it confirmed that the farm had been hit by the virus and a cull was performed yesterday, the center said. As of Thursday, 145 poultry farms have been hit by highly pathogenic strains of the virus this year, resulting in more than 1.4 million birds being culled, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine data showed.
CRIME
Police seize fake goods
More than 6,000 pieces of counterfeit brand-name clothing and footwear have been seized at markets in Tainan and Kaohsiung, police said yesterday. The brands include Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and New Balance. Some of the seized counterfeit goods, including sneakers and T-shirts, were put on display at an office of the Second Special Police Corps in Kaohsiung. They would have a total value of NT$5 million (US$164,474) at retail stores if they were genuine, an officer told reporters. The counterfeit goods were seized from six vendors in Tainan and Kaohsiung who had been selling them at traditional markets and night markets, which often attract large numbers of tourists, Criminal Investigation Brigade Captain Tai Chao-tung said. The task force that conducted the raids was formed following a tip-off, police said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Kinmen to host festival
Kinmen County is expected be inundated with visitors attending an international musical festival that is to last two months, beginning on Saturday next week. The Quemoy International Music Festival is to be held at Houhu Seashore Park until Aug. 30, with musical performances every Wednesday and Saturday, its organizers said. Popular singers and bands, including Wu Bai (伍佰) and China Blue, have been invited to perform at the festival, the organizers said. In addition, 44 groups of musicians and singers from other Asian nations, including Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand and China, have been invited to perform, the organizers said.
EMPLOYMENT
Loans are a problem: poll
Many young Taiwanese not only face low salaries, but also shoulder the heavy financial burden of student loans, a survey released by an online job broker showed yesterday. The poll conducted by 1111 Job Bank revealed that 41 percent of new graduates had outstanding student loans or other debt obligations. The average student loan owed by graduates was NT$205,911, with 17 percent owing NT$310,000 or more, the survey showed. This year, the average starting salary for new graduates is NT$28,004, which means that indebted graduates would have to save all their salary for 7.35 months to pay off the average loan. The survey also showed that 63 percent of new graduates are interested in working overseas. The top three reasons listed by respondents interested in working abroad were that they wanted to broaden their horizons, salary levels in Taiwan are too low and overseas work experience would be beneficial to their career. The survey was conducted from June 7 to Wednesday and involved 562 job bank members who graduated from university this summer.
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