CRIME
Cody Wilson sent to US
Cody Wilson, a US citizen who fled to Taiwan after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Texas, was yesterday escorted by National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where he was put on a 10pm flight to Houston. Taiwanese aviation security officers were expected to accompany Wilson on the flight and US law enforcement would board to arrest Wilson after the airplane lands in Houston, sources said. Wilson was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Bureau in a cheap hotel in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) on Friday evening. NIA official Chang Wen-hsiu (張文秀) yesterday said that the US on Friday sent a notice to Taiwan, saying that Wilson’s passport had been revoked, which made Wilson’s stay in Taiwan illegal. After Wilson’s arrest in Taipei, his lawyer contacted the NIA on Friday, saying that Wilson was willing to leave Taiwan, Chang said, adding that the lawyer said his willingness to leave Taiwan came after negotiations with US prosecutors.
WEATHER
Storm might affect Taiwan
A tropical storm has formed over the Pacific, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Tropical Storm Trami, which was 2,150km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) in southern Taiwan as of 8am yesterday, was moving west-northwest at 23kph toward Japan’s Okinawa. Although Trami is expected not to affect Taiwan in the short term, it is forecast to come closest to Taiwan on Thursday or Friday, bringing rain to the northern and eastern parts of the country, the bureau said. Trami could affect Taiwan if it continues to gain strength and develops into a typhoon by Thursday or Friday, meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said.
HEALTHCARE
Care rule change proposed
As many as 28,000 households could benefit from a proposed loosening of regulations governing applications for respite care services when their regular foreign caregivers take time off, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said on Thursday. The rule change, which could be adopted as soon as November, would allow those who qualify to apply for a maximum of 21 days of respite care annually without having to go through a 30-day waiting period without care, which is the situation at present, Long-term Care Services Division official Chou Tao-chun (周道君) said. If implemented, the provision would initially focus on applicants who are severely disabled with limited support, such as individuals who live alone or are older than 75, Chou said. According to the plan, low-income households would be fully subsidized for respite care services, while middle-low-income and general households would be required to pay 5 percent and 16 percent of costs respectively.
SPORTS
Team wins tug-of-war gold
Taiwanese athletes yesterday snagged another gold medal at the Tug of War International Federation World Outdoor Championships in South Africa, giving Taiwan six gold medals at this year’s championship, with other events still being contested. The tug-of-war team from Taipei Jingmei Girls’ High School and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) defeated the host country to win the women’s under-23 500kg title. On Friday, another team of students from Jingmei Girls’ High School and NTNU won a gold medal in the women’s 500kg tug-of-war after defeating Switzerland 2-0 in the finals.
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