TOURISM
Jinning to host festival
Kinmen County’s annual Oyster and Wheat Festival is to take place in Jinning Township (金寧) on Saturday and Sunday next week to promote locally grown produce. The two-day event is to include a specialties and food fair featuring locally harvested oysters and wheat. An oyster shucking competition is to begin at 2pm on Saturday. Those interested in participating must sign up with the township office in advance. That same day, there is to be a concert featuring singers and bands, such as rap group Nine One One. Another oyster shucking event is to take place at 3:30pm on Sunday, which is also to have live music performances.
CRIME
Electronics given to DHS
The Upper Darby Police Department in Pennsylvania has handed over the computer, iPad and smartphone of a Taiwanese student arrested for threatening to shoot up his high school to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for further analysis, a spokesman said on Tuesday. Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood told local news station NBC10 that the DHS would be able to determine whether Sun An-tso’s (孫安佐) “threats to carry out a shooting at Bonner and Prendergast Catholic High School in Drexel Hill expand beyond local boundaries.” One question that a huge cache of ammunition, as well as a handmade gun and other weapons, seized by police raised is whether Sun was acting alone. “Is this a lone wolf or is he associated with somebody else?” Chitwood said, adding that police would have a better idea once they get everything in place.
SPORTS
School league continues
The second round of the Cross-Strait Student Baseball League yesterday opened in Beijing, featuring 20 teams from universities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The three-day second round is being held at Fengtai Baseball Field and is also to feature games for elementary, middle and high-school teams. The teams were decided based on preliminary qualifiers that took place in Taiwan and China to determine the nine Taiwanese and 11 Chinese teams. The second round is to continue in Taichung in July, with the finals taking place at the end of the year, set tentatively in Shenzhen, China. The Taiwanese teams are from schools such as National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, the Chinese Culture University and Shih Hsin University, while the Chinese teams include those from Tianjin University of Sport, Peking University, Beijing Normal University and Chengdu Sport University.
WEATHER
Front to lower temperatures
Temperatures in northern and central Taiwan are forecast to plunge to 14°C tomorrow with the arrival of a cold front and a continental cold air mass, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. While the nation is to enjoy highs in the 30s on the first two days of the five-day Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, CWB forecaster Yen Tseng-hsi (顏增璽) said that temperatures would drop by 15°C in northern and central Taiwan tomorrow. The low temperatures are to continue until Sunday, Yen said. Today’s daytime highs are forecast to reach 30°C to 31°C, similar to that of yesterday. There is also a chance of fog in western Taiwan, Yen added, which could affect travel plans for people returning to the nation after the holiday.
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