TRAVEL
Batteries No. 1 seized item
Portable power banks constituted about 70 percent of all banned items confiscated from checked baggage at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in the first three months of the year, the airport said yesterday. During the period, a total of 14,226 portable power banks were found and removed from checked baggage, Taoyuan International Airport Co said. The power banks were followed by lighters at 16 percent and lead-acid or lithium batteries at 12 percent, statistics provided by the firm showed. The company urged travelers not to place power banks and batteries in checked luggage, because they could cause a fire in the cargo hold. Such items must be carried or placed in carry-on luggage, it said.
CRIME
Pingtung drug lab raided
Police have detained a suspect and seized 48kg of amphetamine and 296kg of semi-finished products following a raid on an underground drug factory in Pingtung County’s Kanding Township (崁頂), law enforcement authorities said yesterday. The finished and unfinished drugs were estimated to have a market value of more than NT$100 million (US$3.29 million), Donggang Precinct police officers said. The suspect, surnamed Huang (黃), has no criminal record, police said, adding that they learned he might be producing drugs at a pig farm based on a tip received a few months ago. After tracking him and monitoring his daily activities, they decided to launch the raid on Wednesday and detained him on Thursday morning, police said. In addition to the drugs, police also seized raw materials and equipment used to produce amphetamine. Efforts are being made to track Huang’s raw material sources and downstream markets, police said.
HEALTH
Dengue fever cases up
People planning to visit Southeast Asia should take precautions against dengue fever, the Kaohsiung City Department of Health said on Thursday, as the city has seen an increasing number of imported dengue fever infections. As of Wednesday, 16 cases had been reported, with most of the infected people returning from Southeast Asia. In the latest case, a traveler on Tuesday reported suspected dengue fever symptoms of high body temperature and diarrhea after a trip to Sri Lanka. On Wednesday, the 31-year-old was confirmed to have contracted the mosquito-borne disease, and two of his five travel companions are in quarantine, the department said. Six of the other travelers came from Vietnam and four from Malaysia, with one traveler each from Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands.
SOCIETY
Rescue crew fall into sea
Two members of the Ministry of the Interior’s National Airborne Service Corps yesterday fell into the sea from a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter during a search-and-rescue exercise off the coast of Taichung. They were rushed to a hospital after being rescued by the coast guard and are in stable condition, the ministry’s National Fire Agency said, adding that the cause of the incident is being investigated. The helicopter left its base at Ching Chuan Kang Airport earlier yesterday to conduct training off Taichung Harbor. The two crew members fell from a height of about 15m when a hook holding them decoupled from their harness assembly, a spokesman for the corps told reporters. One of them sustained a neck fracture while the other sustained head injuries, Taichung Metroharbor Hospital 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