Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday urged Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) to tighten its internal controls after Sunday’s fire at Nan Ya Plastics Corp’s Second Plant in Taibao City (太保), Chiayi County.
“Over the past seven or eight years, there have been many industrial safety accidents of different magnitudes [at the group’s factories],” Wu said.
He also said he hoped the company would “take [Sunday’s] fire seriously.”
The premier’s comments came after media quoted Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源), the president of another group member, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp, as saying that the Nan Ya factory did not alert the Chiayi fire department as soon as the fire broke out at about 9:30am.
It took firefighters almost 17 hours to extinguish the blaze. There were no reports of casualties.
The factory produces high-quality waterproof synthetic paper known as white pearl, or PEPA.
The fire dealt another blow to the group after two fires broke out in July at its petrochemical complex in Mailiao Township (麥寮), Yunlin County.
Wu said the government would create a task force to monitor the safety of the nation’s petrochemical industry and conduct a thorough safety assessment to prevent more accidents.
The Executive Yuan yesterday announced that registration for a one-time universal NT$10,000 cash handout to help people in Taiwan survive US tariffs and inflation would start on Nov. 5, with payouts available as early as Nov. 12. Who is eligible for the handout? Registered Taiwanese nationals are eligible, including those born in Taiwan before April 30 next year with a birth certificate. Non-registered nationals with residence permits, foreign permanent residents and foreign spouses of Taiwanese citizens with residence permits also qualify for the handouts. For people who meet the eligibility requirements, but passed away between yesterday and April 30 next year, surviving family members
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to
RSS