Legislators across party lines on Thursday called for legislation to restore the nation's ecological balance.
With mountain villages buried in mud and debris triggered by torrential rains and houses along the east coast washed into the Pacific by flash flooding when Typhoon Morakot swept across the nation last weekend, the growing extent of the damage caused by the disaster has raised concerns about the government's land restoration policy.
The Cabinet had approved a land restoration and conservation action plan in January 2005 and lawmakers had discussed drafting a law on land restoration, but the issue has been largely neglected until the latest natural disaster struck.
On Thursday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) called for approval of a land restoration law, a proposal that was supported by Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers.
While academics have warned time and again of the danger of unregulated building catering to the tourist trade in mountain areas, draining underground water and using coastline and riverbank areas for fish farms, the government has been lax on regulation until the latest catastrophe struck, the lawmakers said.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) suggested that when discussing the restructuring of the government in the next legislative session, one important task would be to clarify the responsibilities of government agencies involved in land restoration and management.
DPP Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said that the DPP caucus would draft a new law based on proposed land restoration and conservation provisions that have been shelved and submit it during the next legislative session.
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
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