WEATHER
New cold front coming
A strong cold air front is forecast to reach the nation on Thursday, pushing temperatures down to 10°C to 14°C in the west and northeast, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. While the mercury is expected to continue rising nationwide today, a cold air mass coming from the northeast could start to affect the nation tomorrow, and rain is forecast across northern Taiwan during the cold front, it said. There is a chance of snow at altitudes above 3,000m nationwide, as well as mountains above 2,000m in the north and northeast, it added.
CRIME
Burmese sailor stabbed
A Burmese sailor has died following a stabbing onboard a foreign oil tanker in waters northeast of Taiwan, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said on Saturday. A call from the Cook Islands-registered New Progress was received at about 6pm on Friday, when the vessel was in international waters, 31 nautical miles (57km) off the coast of New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門), it said. The 27-year-old victim, identified as Wai Phy Aumg, was flown to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), but declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. He was apparently wounded during a fight with another crew member, it said. However, the case is outside of the CGA’s jurisdiction, as the New Progress was not in Taiwan’s territorial waters at the time, the vessel is not owned by a Taiwanese and the crew members involved are foreign nationals, it said. Local authorities can only conduct an investigation if the boat owner requests judicial assistance from Taiwan, the coast guard said. The boat is temporarily anchored at the Port of Keelung.
TRANSPORTATION
Repairs to end by Feb. 8
A Taiwan Railways Administration line in New Taipei City that was damaged by a landslide on Dec. 4 last year is scheduled to fully reopen to traffic just before the Lunar New Year holiday, the agency said yesterday. Repair work should be completed by Feb. 8, two days before the start of the seven-day holiday, it said. At present, trains are only allowed to travel both ways on the eastern mainline connecting Taipei and Yilan County, as the western mainline is still being repaired. The agency announced that it would start accepting online booking services on Thursday for trains traveling between Feb. 8 and Feb. 17.
CRIME
Excavation penalties hiked
The Legislative Yuan on Wednesday passed two amendments to impose stronger punishments for illegal sand and gravel excavation in the nation’s coastal waters, including a maximum jail term of seven years and a fine of NT$100 million (US$3.51 million). One of the amendments pertains to the Sand and Gravel Excavation Act (土石採取法), which stipulated before the revision that “sand and gravel excavation without permission” would be subject to a fine ranging from NT$1 million to NT$5 million. The other amendment was to the Act on the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf of the Republic of China (中華民國專屬經濟海域及大陸礁層法), which had stipulated a fine of no more than NT$50 million and up to five years in jail for “whoever willfully damages or harms the natural resources or ecology” of Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. The amendments stipulate prisons term of between one and seven years, along with a maximum fine of NT$100 million for anyone caught illegally dredging for sand and gravel in coastal waters or the nation’s continental shelf.
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