More than 200 environmental protection activists urged the Changhua County Government yesterday not to obstruct the designation of a belt of intertidal zone along the county’s west coast as a wetland of international importance.
The environmentalists from several civic groups made the call in a protest in front of Changhua County Hall against a NT$400 billion (US$13.76 billion) investment project to build a major petrochemical complex on land close to the estuary of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪).
They demanded that Changhua County Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) acquiesce to the Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency in categorizing the intertidal zone as a wetland of international importance so it will not be destroyed, said Tsai Chia-yang (蔡嘉陽), chairman of the Changhua Environmental Protection Union.
The county’s coastal areas house important fishing and agricultural industries as well as biological resources. The county should seek the sustainable development of the area instead of allowing the Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co to destroy the wetland to make way for a new plant, Tsai said.
During the protest, a scuffle broke out between activists and police when their demand to meet Cho was rejected.
The protesters did not leave until Cho’s deputy, Yang Chung (楊仲), appeared and accepted a petition from the environmentalists.
Meanwhile, also in Changhua County, more than 100 students at National Changhua High School staged a campus sit-in in protest over the Kuokuang project.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS