President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday declined to comment on whether government officials should apologize or step down to take responsibility for the damage and deaths caused by Typhoon Sinlaku. Instead, he said that the government would complete an investigation within a week.
Typhoon Sinlaku claimed 12 lives and several people remain missing after landslides near the Fengciou Tunnel (豐丘隧道) in Nantou County on Monday and the collapse of part of Houfeng Bridge (后豐橋) on Sunday.
Ma said yesterday that he and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) had agreed that the government would decide within a week whether government officials should be held responsible for the deaths.
PHOTO: OU SU-MEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The Nantou District Prosecutors’ Office and Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office have also launched probes into whether any civil servants should be held criminally responsible, he said.
Ma also requested that the Nantou County Government find out whether the hot spring hotels in the county were built legally. He said that any illegally built or condemned buildings should be demolished.
Regarding criticism that he had taken too long to visit the disaster areas, Ma said that he believed that it would not have been a good idea for him to go there before firefighters and rescue workers had completed their work.
He and Liu had different responsibilities, he said, adding that to avoid causing unnecessary trouble, he would rather visit disaster areas after search and rescue operations came to an end, a more appropriate time to determine how to tackle similar problems in future.
At a separate setting earlier yesterday, Liu said the government would determine which officials should take responsibility for the casualties within a week.
“Because of the problems of global warming and climate change, natural disasters pose a greater threat. Although natural disasters are terrible, man-made calamities are intolerable,” Liu said at the Cabinet’s weekly meeting.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) was singled out by some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, who demanded he resign over the tragic incidents.
Mao said yesterday that he would reflect on the situation, but stopped short of taking any responsibility.
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