President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged the Cabinet yesterday to start flood prevention work immediately to guard against further flooding as another typhoon approaches.
Visiting Taiping (太平), a city in Taichung County that suffered severe flooding caused by Tropical Storm Kalmaegi early this month, Ma said the Cabinet should work on preventing further flooding in flood-prone areas.
Accompanied by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) and KMT legislators, Ma asked the Cabinet to proceed with flood prevention work by following four basic principles.
In addition to making flood-prone areas flood-free, Ma urged the Cabinet to draft appropriate strategies, allocate a bigger budget and complete construction works promptly.
“No matter what plans you make and what measures you adopt, flood-prevention would be a failure if the areas continue to suffer from flooding,” he said.
Emergency
With Typhoon Fung-wong approaching, Ma headed back to Taipei at about 6pm and went to the Central Emergency Response Center to get first-hand information on the storm’s development.
The Ma administration has come under fire over following severe flooding and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Kalmaegi.
Liu has promised to spend NT$500 billion (US$16.4 billion) to expropriate riverside land to dredge rivers.
Asked by reporters to comment on the government’s flood-prevention efforts, Ma had acknowledged that his administration failed to respond promptly to Tropical Storm Kalmaegi, but added that the government would enhance its efforts to prevent further disasters.
“We don’t blame anyone or [the] former government on the flooding problems. We will look ahead and correct all the mistakes made in the past,” he said.
After listening to a briefing about the approaching storm at the center, Liu called on local governments chiefs not relax their guard in preparing anti-typhoon measures.
“If we put in an extra effort in advance, it will save us a lot of trouble afterward,” Liu said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods