Unhappy with the government's continued ignorance of the appeal to save Losheng Sanatorium, the nation's only public sanatorium for leprosy patients, about a 100 students yesterday staged a protest in front of Premier Su Tseng-chang's (
Yesterday's protest was the second time in five days that the students, along with several leprosy patients, tried to appeal directly to the premier. They were unable to present their petition to the premier because of a heavy police presence.
"We wanted to ask for the Executive Yuan's intervention in the matter as the Taipei County Government has announced that it will go ahead with the demolition of [Losheng Sanatorium] on Tuesday and forcefully remove the remaining leprosy patients if they refuse to move out," said Flora Kuan, a student.
PHOTO: CNA
The county government plans to tear down the sanatorium to make way for the construction of a Mass Rapid Transit depot.
The campaign for the building's preservation has attracted an increasing number of activists over the past few years since a group of medical students banded together to help the patients organize an association to state their case.
In November 2005, the legislature passed an amendment to the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (
"In light of these developments, the central government should intervene in this case by designating the sanatorium a temporary historic site and call a halt to the construction work, regardless of whether it has the approval of local governments," Kuan said.
The council also brought up a proposal to preserve 90 percent of the sanatorium.
"The Executive Yuan should put the council's proposal to a public debate and delay the demolition work until a conclusion on the proposal is reached," she said.
Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS