HEALTH
Group calls for donations
The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation on Saturday called on the public to donate blood, as the nation’s supply of blood has fallen below the officially designated safe level of seven days. A shortage of all blood types has reached critical levels particularly in Taipei and Tainan, the foundation said. In Hsinchu and Kaohsiung, there is a shortage of type O blood, while in Taichung, types O and AB are in short supply, it added. Liu Chun-hong (劉俊宏) of the Taipei Blood Center, which is run by the foundation, said the low supply could be due to increased demand from people with cardiovascular disease and gastrointestinal bleeding. Blood transfusions in Taipei in September rose by 6,000 bags from a year earlier, Liu said. One of the reasons could be the postponement of major surgeries at hospitals earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding that there was also high demand in October and last month.
RESTAURANTS
Ice Monster to close shop
Ice Monster, a Taipei chain store that sells shaved ice desserts, yesterday said that it would temporarily close its shop on Yongkang Street due to slow business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The store, the first in the chain, would close by the end of this year, but those on Songgao Road and in the Ximending (西門町) area would remain open, the company said in a statement. Yongkang Street is a popular tourist area that normally attracts foreign visitors. However, since the beginning of this year, several businesses in the Yongkang Street commercial circle have been forced to close or readjust, the Taipei Dongmen Yongkang Business Circle Development Association has said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Taiwanese film wins award
The Taiwanese comedy I WeirDO (怪胎) on Saturday won the best film award at the London East Asia Film Festival, the biggest Asian film festival in the UK. Written and directed by newcomer Liao Ming-yi (廖明毅), the movie tells the story of two lovers who have obsessive compulsive disorder. It has been touted as the first feature film in Asia shot entirely on an iPhone. The film has won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema’s NETPAC Award at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea, as well as the Crystal Mulberry Award and Purple Mulberry Award at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. It also won the Audience Award at Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival and an Honorable Mention Award at the New York Asian Film Festival.
WEATHER
Temperatures to drop
Temperatures in most of northern Taiwan are expected to fall to 13°C this week with the approach of a seasonal northeasterly wind system, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The wind system began affecting Taiwan late last night, sending the mercury down to 14°C to 16°C degrees in northern and central parts of the nation until Wednesday, the bureau said. In low-lying and coastal regions, as well as in areas close to the mountains, the temperature is expected to dip to lows of 13°C, bureau forecaster Wang Pin-hsiang (王品翔) said. In eastern and southern parts of the country, lows will hover around 17°C to 18°C, he said. The cold and wet weather in northern Taiwan is likely to last until Friday, after which the mercury would rise again and the rain would stop, he said. However, another cold wave would arrive on Saturday, bringing cold and rainy weather to northern Taiwan again, he 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