Environmentalists delivered the “Black Planet Award” to Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) yesterday.
The German-based Foundation Ethics and Economics Conference (Ethcon) gave the conglomerate the award for its “continuing sequence of social and ecological foul play throughout the world.”
The environmentalists also accused Taipei bus operators of tampering with their advertisements about the award.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
However, no one from the Formosa Group showed up at the ceremony — which featured a skit portraying President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as a toady of big corporations — to claim the award.
Calling the award “the shame of Taiwan,” Chien Hsi-chieh (簡錫土皆) of the Alliance for Fair Tax Reform, said Formosa had only been able to grow so big so fast because of tax benefits from the government.
“The interest rate for corporate loans used to be about 10 percent,” Chien said. “Formosa was able to secure a loan of NT$140 billion [US$4.4 billion] and it only paid 3 percent in interest. The other 7 percent of interest rate was paid by taxpayers.”
The six-year-old Ethocon annually presents a “Blue Planet Award” to those who try to protect the Earth, and “Black Planet Award” to those who have demonstrated they represent a clear danger to the Earth.
Janis Wang (王佳貞), a representative of the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, said the group bought ad space on 23 buses operating along 10 different routes in Taipei that would take them past FPG’s buildings, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and other sites.
When the association’s representatives went to check the ads on Tuesday, they found the character “shame” (恥) on the poster had been removed, she said. The bus operators then told them they had to submit ads for review and approval first.
“We didn’t know we had to submit the advertisement for review,” Wang said. “When we found the mistake we called [the operators] and asked what we should do. They told us that we could fix the problem by providing requested documents.”
On Tuesday night, however, Wang said that they were told that the ads had to go.
Wang said that the association has collected NT$150,000 in donations to finance the ad campaign.
Green Party Taiwan Secretary- General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said the ad addresses an issue that was open for discussion. He said FPG does not have to pressure bus operators to take out a word in such a secretive manner.
“It restricts people’s speech and shows that the law of the Wangs [FPG’s owners] is more powerful than the Constitution,” Pan said.
Some environmentalists will attend FPG’s shareholders’ meeting next month, Pan said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS