The Taipei City Government yesterday issued a request to the Ministry of the Interior to seek a constitutional interpretation of the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) in its latest effort to solve disputes over a controversial urban renewal project in Shilin District (士林).
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said that the question of whether the act conflicted with the Constitution was raised by the Wang (王) family, whose two stand-alone apartment blocks were torn down last month by the city government to make way for a urban renewal project, and that the city government expected the ministry to seek a constitutional interpretation to address the concern.
The city government made the move after Hau met with the family members on Tuesday to address their concerns. The Wang family had resisted moving from the homes in which they had lived for six generations, but the city government evicted the family and demolished the buildings because more than 90 percent of households in the area had agreed to move.
Critics say the forcible eviction of the family was a violation of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to property.
As Hau’s city government softened its stance and expressed its willingness to address the Wang family’s concerns, Hau yesterday also called on the construction firm to show goodwill by dropping a lawsuit against the family and supporters over tearing down the fences on the construction site, and allegedly damaging the firm’s reputation.
“I think it’s a good thing that the case attracted a wide range of discussions on urban renewal, and we hope the construction firm and the Wang family can sit down and solve the problems,” he said.
While Hau promised to help the Wang family address the concerns, a group of landowners who agreed with the project yesterday urged the city government and the -construction firm to fulfill their promises to complete the new 15-story apartment complex in two years.
“Hau Lung-bin said he was pained by the process. We feel more pain than him because we have been waiting for a new home for three years now,” a local landowner surnamed Lin (林) said.
Hau yesterday said the only responsibility of the city government was to demolish the buildings on behalf of the construction firm to facilitate the project and that the construction firm was obligated to address issues regarding the construction of the new apartment building.
“It is inappropriate for the city government to serve as a mediator for negotiations between the construction firm and the Wang family,” he said, adding that a non-profit organization should be found to handle the negotiations.
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
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods