AIRPORTS
Drop-off service to expand
Taoyuan International Airport Corp yesterday said it is to double the number of baggage drop-off kiosks to 26 by the end of the year as part of a program to modernize its services. The kiosks are to be installed near check-in counters 16 and 17 in Terminal 2 of the nation’s main international airport, TIAC senior vice president Jerry Dann (但昭璧) said. The existing 13 kiosks, which were introduced on Oct. 1, handle an average of 800 pieces of luggage per day, with a total capacity of 3,000 pieces, Dann said. More passengers are using the service, through which they scan their boarding pass to get baggage tags that they attach to their bags and put on conveyor belts themselves, Dann said. The service is available for flights operated by China Airlines, Mandarin Airlines, EVA Airways and Uni Air, Dann said, adding that foreign airlines, including Cathay Pacific Airways, AirAsia, Japan Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines, have expressed interest in signing up.
WEATHER
Rain expected today
The weather in northern areas is expected to remain cool and rainy today, due to northeasterly winds, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The winds are expected to weaken today, bureau forecaster Lin Po-tung (林柏東) said, adding that sunny skies and warmer temperatures are likely tomorrow. Meanwhile, Daniel Wu (吳德榮), a professor in National Central University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, said that a tropical disturbance looks likely to form near Guam on about Thursday next week. The system is expected to move northward toward Japan and is unlikely to affect Taiwan, Wu said.
SOCIETY
Parade to promote voting
A gay pride parade organized by Taiwan LGBT Pride is to be held in Taipei on Saturday next week, with a focus on promoting two referendums on amending Civil Code marriage regulations and the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法). The parade, which carries the theme “tell your story, vote for equality,” is to begin in the afternoon in front of the Presidential Office Building on Ketagalan Boulevard, the group said. Although the number of people participating in the parade has increased every year, the march is to remain the same, with nine groups divided into three routes, the organization said. To showcase the nation’s social and cultural diversity, Taiwan LGBT said that everyone in the LGBTIQA community should take part and vote for the referendums it initiated, which are to be held alongside the nine-in-one elections on Nov. 24.
EDUCATION
Iowa language deal inked
The Ministry of Education in Taipei on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Iowa Department of Education, saying that the government would organize Chinese-language teaching resources as part of a language-exchange program. Bi Tzu-an (畢祖安), director-general of the ministry’s Department of International and Cross-strait Education, said the program would boost language education cooperation with Iowa. The nation is to help the US state recruit Chinese-language faculty and offer Chinese-language teachers, while Taiwanese students can go to the US to learn English, Bi said. The program would start by sending qualified Chinese-language teachers to the US to support cultural and educational teamwork from kindergarten to grade 12, and promote cooperation among educational institutions on both sides, as well as cultural exchanges, the ministry 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