ENVIRONMENT
Surge in coastal cleanups
The Environmental Protection Administration on Monday released the results of a call-to-action for beach cleanups it made in April, which showed a massive surge in the number of cleanups by corporations, schools and civil organizations. According to the results, 440 groups have hosted a total of 389 coastal cleanups since April in which 11,352 people participated, gathering 133.07 tonnes of garbage. The agency said the company that cleaned up the largest area of coastline in a single event was Taiwan Sugar Corp, whose Yunlin-Chiayi branch cleared a 5km stretch of beach. Taiwan Power Co’s Hsinta Power Plant organized the most beach cleanups, hosting 36 from the end of April to the start of this month. The company with the most employees mobilized was Taiwan Sugar’s Yunlin-Chiayi branch with 1,943 employees, followed by Cleanaway Enterprise with 500 employees. The numbers were calculated from April 22 to Sept. 8, the agency said, urging the public to continue the coastal cleanup efforts.
CRIME
Woman steals girl’s prize
A 32-inch television won by a young girl after an athletics event organized by Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township Office was stolen on Saturday by an unknown woman. The woman simply walked on stage and accepted the prize. Jhunan Sports Association official Liang Hui-ming (梁輝明) said that the winner of the prize was a girl surnamed Huang (黃). The event organizers tried to contact the woman, but to no avail, as she left a fake telephone number. The television was donated by the mayor of Jhunan Township (竹南) and the woman has been reported to the police, Liang said. The event, which attracted about 2,000 participants, was held at Lungfeng Fishing Port.
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