Praising the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the public for their contributions to recycling, Premier Frank Hsieh (
"We will ask battery manufacturers especially to assume a greater responsibility to make provision for the recycling of their products," Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (
According to Cho, an EPA survey showed that 90 percent of Taiwanese residents support the idea of sorting their garbage to be recycled.
"We initially thought the public would be averse to this policy, because it makes their life less convenient. However, this policy has received support beyond our expectations and seems to be very popular," Cho said.
The premier is always glad to see people supporting the policy, cooperating with collectors and patiently waiting for the garbage truck by the side of the road, Cho said.
The Cabinet spokesman said that the recycling of used batteries, Styrofoam and paper will be the focus of future policies. "Currently, only 17 percent of batteries, 46 percent waste paper and 42 percent of the Styrofoam in circulation are being recycled."
He added that the government will also tackle the recycling of kitchen waste and restaurant leftovers, although more details need to be worked out by the EPA, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture, who are working on plans to turn the leftovers into manure.
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,
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