Environmental activists filed a petition yesterday asking the Control Yuan to probe a long-disputed resort development in Taitung on what was once one of Taiwan’s most beautiful beaches.
The activists also called for the impeachment of officials they accused of failing to fulfill their duties.
The activists, including representatives of Citizens of the Earth and the Green Party, were making their sixth visit in four years to the Control Yuan, demanding an investigation into the construction of the Miramar Resort Village on Shanyuan Bay (杉原灣).
Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) of Citizens of the Earth said previous petitions went unanswered because the Control Yuan would not take any action until a final Supreme Administrative Court ruling on the case.
In September, the court ordered the developer to halt construction, eight months after it invalidated an environmental impact assessment for the project.
Now the court has ruled the construction illegal, the Control Yuan should begin an investigation as soon as possible, Tsai said. Control Yuan member Chou Yang-shan (周陽山) has accepted the latest petition and promised to start proceedings based on the law, Tsai added.
Environmental protection groups have since demanded the demolition of the buildings already constructed, insisting that a development project of environmental concern should not be allowed to proceed without passing environmental impact assessments by independent professionals.
This demand has been rejected by the Taitung County Government, which said the ruling does not mean that the buildings already constructed should be demolished.
The county government insists the project has followed legal procedure since construction began in 2005 and that it is waiting for a new environmental impact evaluation.
The resort project is a build-operate-transfer project by the county and Urban Development Co.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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