The government has sought measures to protect endangered dolphins before CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC,
Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化科技), a venture led by state-run oil refiner CPC, and Formosa Plastics Group should study Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in their environmental assessments for the proposed projects, Edward Huang (黃光輝), director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration's planning department, said yesterday.
The projects have already been delayed by concerns that they may increase emissions of greenhouse gases. Formosa Plastics Group said in 2005 it plans to spend NT$135 billion (US$4.2 billion) to build a steel mill in Yunlin County, aiming to start output this year. CPC originally planned to begin work in 2004 on a chemical project in the same county.
"If the dolphins are found near the sites, the companies will have to come up with measures to ensure these animals won't be disturbed," Huang said. "Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins are endangered and it's an international practise to project them."
The dolphins were discovered near the west coast in 2002, and the population there is estimated at fewer than 100, the Eastern Taiwan Strait Sousa Technical Advisory Working Group, a newly founded organization aimed at protecting the mammals, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We don't think Kuokuang will affect the habitat of the dolphins," Kuokuang Petrochemical president Roy Chiu (邱吉雄) said yesterday. "We would like to know what we can do, and we know very little."
A one-year study commissioned by Kuokuang did not spot any of the dolphins near the proposed site, he said. The cost for the chemical project will probably exceed NT$500 billion, higher than the NT$401 billion previously estimated, Chiu said.
The plan will include a 300,000-barrels-a-day crude oil refinery and an ethylene plant with annual capacity of 1.2 million tonnes. CPC and partners founded Kuokuang in 2006 to carry out the project.
Formosa Plastics Group's proposed steel mill will have capacity of 7.5 million metric tonnes a year, Lee Chih-tsuen (
Formosa Plastics, based in Taipei, is the nation's biggest diversified industrial company.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained