POLICE
Nguyen’s remains returned
The family of Vietnamese migrant worker Nguyen Quoc Phi, who was shot and killed by police at the age of 27, yesterday took his ashes back to Vietnam. Nguyen’s death at the hands of a Hsinchu police officer has raised many questions, not only among other migrant workers and labor rights advocates in Taiwan, but also from his family. His father, Nguyen Quoc Dong, rushed to Taiwan on Sept. 5 after hearing the news of his son’s death. During his time in Taiwan, Nguyen Quoc Dong and his daughter, Nguyen Thi Thao, who was already in Taiwan, have demanded that the government and police fully investigate the killing. Nguyen’s father and sister arrived at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi at 9:30am and were driven home to Nghe An Province by family members. Police were unable to release the footage from the body camera of the police officer in the shooting while an investigation into Nguyen’s death was ongoing.
SOCIETY
US school hosts benefit sale
The Taipei American School (TAS) Orphanage Club is to host its annual September rummage sale today from 10am to 5pm. Club members have collected a wide variety of new and second-hand clothing, shoes, furniture and other household items, toys, stuffed animals, games and electronics. The sale is to be held in the school’s forecourt and lobby at No. 800 Zhongshan N Road Sec 6 in Tianmu (天母) and all of the proceeds are to go to the club’s funds for orphans and other children in need in Taiwan and overseas.
ENTERTAINMENT
Oscar submission made
A documentary by local director Huang Hui-chen (黃惠偵) has been selected as the nation’s official entry for the foreign-language film category at the 90th Academy Awards. In her documentary, Small Talk (日常對話), Huang explores her relationship with her lesbian mother, “A-nu.” The director said that the documentary depicts her mother’s experience with domestic violence, her role as a Taoist priestess and Huang’s confusion about her mother growing up. The feature shows how the two find a way to get along through everyday conversations, hence the title Small Talk, Huang said. The entry, selected by the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, marks the first time Taiwan has submitted a documentary in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
SOCIETY
Novelist dies aged 70
Novelist Li Yongping (李永平), the winner of last year’s National Awards of Art, died yesterday aged 70 in New Taipei City, Wenhsun magazine reported. Li succumbed to multiple organ failure caused by sepsis at Mackay Memorial Hospital’s Tamsui branch, the magazine said. Li was born in 1947 in Sarawak, now a state of Malaysia, and came to Taiwan in 1967 as a student at National Taiwan University’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literature. After obtaining his master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature in the US, Li returned to Taiwan in 1982 and began teaching at various local universities, including National Sun Yat-sen University, Soochow University and National Dong Hwa University. He had published more than 30 novels and short stories since 1966, which won him several literature awards. Li, who renounced his Malaysian citizenship in 1987, described himself as “100 percent Taiwanese.”
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