ENVIRONMENT
Water supply to be sufficient
Water supply is expected to be sufficient this winter, despite the annual dry season, which usually runs from this month to April, the Water Resources Agency said yesterday. Due to an abundance of rainfall since May, water levels across major reservoirs are at near full capacity, the agency said. The Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan is at 97 percent of capacity, while it is 98 percent at Baoshan and Baoer reservoirs in Hsinchu County, 96 percent at Liyutan Reservoir in Miaoli County, and 80 percent at Tsengwen Reservoir in Chiayi County and Wushantou Reservoir in Tainan, it said. Water supply for crop irrigation is unlikely to be affected this winter, but the agency urged the public to continue to practice water conservation in view of the fluctuating weather patterns brought by climate change.
HEALTH
Students suffer burns
Eleven students from Stella Matutina Girls’ High School in Taichung were hospitalized after suffering burns at a barbecue at a youth center on Thursday. After receiving a report that several students had suffered burns while camping at Tsengwen Youth Activity Center, the Tainan Fire Department dispatched ambulances and personnel, with the 11 students taken to four hospitals in the city. One of the students reportedly suffered first to second-degree burns on 10 percent of her body, while the others sustained burns to their face and hands, paramedics said. An initial investigation showed that the accident was likely caused when a portable cooker exploded after being placed too close to a barbeque, but the exact cause has yet to be determined, paramedics said. School official Wang Mei-ling (王美玲) said that the students, aged 13 to 15, were on the first day of a three-day camping trip.
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