A tropical disturbance east of the Philippines could develop into this year’s second tropical storm or typhoon in the northwestern Pacific, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
It could strengthen into a tropical depression today, as it passes through the Philippines’ Luzon Island and the South China Sea on its way toward Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong Province, the bureau said.
The tropical depression would likely develop into a tropical storm or a typhoon when it moves through the South China Sea, the bureau said, adding that it would monitor its development to determine how it might affect the nation.
The tropical storm would be named Nuri once it is formed, which means “parrot” in Malay, it said.
A humid southeast wind would bring isolated showers to Hualien, Taitung and the Hengchun Peninsula in Pingtung between tomorrow and Sunday, while cloudy to sunny skies are forecast for the rest of the nation, the bureau said, adding that chances of afternoon thundershowers are high nationwide.
Temperatures are forecast to exceed 32oC, it said.
Former bureau forecast center director Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that forecasts on the development of the tropical disturbance vary among meteorological agencies worldwide.
How the weather system would affect Taiwan would depend on whether it develops into a tropical storm and its distance from the nation, he added.
The weather would start becoming unstable again tomorrow, he said, adding that regions with higher chances of rain would expand from southeastern Taiwan and Pingtung to the east coast and Kaohsiung between tomorrow and Monday next week.
The nation would see hot and sunny weather again on Tuesday when the humidity decreases, Wu added.
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