Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday expressed support for Miaoli County farmers caught up in a land dispute with the county government.
Visiting the area with party officials and DPP lawmakers, she said the Miaoli County Government’s land expropriation program violated the basic human rights of farmers that were forced out of their homes.
The government has expropriated 28 hectares in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, for an expansion of the Jhunan Science Park. The move has attracted a storm of controversy after a number of farmers refused to turn over their land, saying they had lived in the area for decades.
Large technology companies, including Chimei Innolux Corp, the nation’s biggest LCD panel maker, reportedly expressed an interest in building new factories on the land.
“President Ma Ying-jeou’s [馬英九] government has given free rein for county commissioners and large corporations to engage in reckless behavior,” Tsai said. “I’m worried that more incidents like this will continue happening in the future.”
She said it was regrettable that neither Ma nor the central government had stepped in and taken control of the situation, despite numerous protests by area farmers.
On June 30, more than 100 residents from Jhunan Township demonstrated against the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office, with some saying they would not know how to make a living if the county government expropriated their land.
Two days prior to the protests, a large number of rice paddies were dug up by excavators deployed by the county government, a move that the county government has defended as “completely legal.”
Media reports quoted Liu as saying yesterday that the entire seven-year land expropriation and development proposal had followed procedure and was done in accordance with law.
He said that 98 percent of landowners had agreed to the expropriation measures and that the county government had already completed the legal process for taking over the land.
Liu also criticized Tsai, saying that her involvement in the affair was a political stunt to increase support for the year-end special municipality elections and amounted to “political interference.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique