With the appointment of the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) minister still pending, the nation's environmentalists have expressed different opinions.
Saying that a new minister may be chosen with one eye on next year's presidential election, Green Formosa Front secretary-general Wu Tung-jye (吳東傑) yesterday hoped the change would enable the agency to stand on its own two feet, instead of being just an endorser of projects handed down by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Specifically, Wu urged the EPA to quickly resolve controversies surrounding several development projects, including the Suhua Freeway and the Formosa Group's steel plant.
guardian
"To a certain extent, Chang Kow-lung [
EPA minister Chang Kwo-lung officially resigned along with other Cabinet officials last Wednesday after serving at the position for approximately two years.
appointment
The Executive Yuan announced yesterday it had appointed DPP Legislator Winston Dang (
Tu Wenling (杜文苓), chair of the Taiwan Environmental Action Network, said the environmental group's concern was not so much the appointment of a new EPA minister, as the Executive Yuan's environmental policies in the future -- whether it would focus more on sustainable development or simply curry favor with large corporations.
disappointing
"The Executive Yuan's performance has been disappointing in the past," Tu said.
"The Executive Yuan has already set its own agenda," she said. "It would often blame EPA committee members for their failure to pass environmental impact reviews for certain projects."
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
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