SOCIETY
Drug use declining: MOE
A total of 0.46 percent of students aged 11 and up have tried illegal drugs, evidence of a long-term decline in drug use among young people, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday. A survey released yesterday showed that last year was the fourth consecutive year that self-reported drug use among young people dropped — from 0.67 in 2015 to 0.65 percent in 2016 and 0.47 percent in 2017, the ministry said. The survey was conducted by National Yang Ming University from October 2018 to last month and 119,426 children, teens and young adults responded anonymously to an online questionnaire. The respondents were randomly selected fifth and sixth graders in elementary schools, junior and senior-high school students and college and university students, the ministry said. The survey only shows the percentage of students who have tried illegal drugs, not the frequency of drug use. The continuing decline indicates the government’s anti-drug campaigns are proving effective, the ministry said. Parents need to pay close attention to the behavior of their children and educate them about the dangers of drug use, it said.
TOURISM
Foreign visitor numbers rise
Foreigners made 6.96 million visits to Taiwan from January to last month, up 12.85 percent from the same period last year, the Tourism Bureau said on Monday. That is an increase of 793,070 visits compared with the same period last year, the bureau said. The number of Chinese visitors increased 29.95 percent or 460,852 visits, while South Koreans were up 10.11 percent, Japanese 8.81 percent and those from Hong Kong and Macau 7.38 percent. Visitors from the 18 nations covered by the New Southbound Policy made 59,183 more visits, a 4.28 percent increase compared with last year, the bureau said.
DIPLOMACY
Tsai meets US governor
The government is to send an agricultural delegation to Mississippi next month to enhance relations with the US state, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday as she met Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant in Taipei. Taiwan and Mississippi have maintained close relations since 1983, she said. Bilateral trade surpassed US$400 million last year, making Taiwan Mississippi’s 10th-largest trading partner in Asia, she said. Bryant was in Taipei on a two-day visit that began on Monday as the head of trade delegation, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement said.
TRAVEL
Vietjet opens Da Nang route
Vietnamese budget carrier Vietjet Air yesterday announced that it would begin operating regular flights between Taiwan and the coastal city of Da Nang on Dec. 19. Given Vietnam’s increasing popularity among Taiwanese tourists, the new route is part of the company’s plan to expand Vietjet’s network, the airline said. Vietjet would operate daily flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Da Nang using its new Airbus A320/A321 aircraft, it said. VietJet Air operates more than 50 round-trip flights on seven routes connecting Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung with Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Far Eastern Air Transport has been operating charter flights between Da Nang and Taoyuan since July last year, and between Da Nang and Kaohsiung since October. EVA Airways has also announced plans to begin daily flights between Taoyuan and Da Nang on Dec. 21.
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