While the homes of four families in Dapu (大埔) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) were being forcefully dismantled yesterday, a group of residents led by Miaoli County Council Speaker Yu Chung-tien (游忠鈿) were in Taipei slamming opponents of the demolition.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) and Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌), both from Miaoli, which has only two legislative seats, scheduled a press conference in support of the Miaoli County Government to coincide with the demolition.
“Out of a total of 38 county councilors in Miaoli, 32 are here today. Supporters of the four families have stood in the way of the county’s development. As county councilors, we would have stopped the demolition if the county government had done anything wrong,” Yu said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The four houses were flattened to make way for a 154 hectare development project, which includes the expansion of the Jhunan Science Park, erecting public facilities and establishing a residential commercial district. Farmland and houses on 136 hectares were expropriated for the project.
Yu said he wished that the residents of the four houses, owned by Ko Cheng-fu (柯成福), Huang Fu-ji (黃福記), Peng Hsiu-chun (彭秀春) and Chu Su (朱樹), can look up to people who donate land to build roads and bridges, without expecting compensation.
“Only once the four houses were torn down could justice and fairness be fulfilled. If these houses were not torn down, how would the other 39 families whose houses had already been dismantled endure the pain? The [families owning the four houses] should make public interest a priority,” Chen said.
Other than labeling the four families “obstacles” to local development, supporters of the development project called students, academics and activists from various non-governmental organizations backing the four families “outsiders.”
“Miaoli is a home to us local people, not to them [supporters of the four families]. What are they? Students and human rights activists,” Chen said.
Dapu Village Warden Cheng Wen-ching (鄭文進) said if the four houses were left standing they would pose a danger to the public because they would block traffic, but demolishing them did not leave the families homeless, because they would get other houses to live in.
The issue was not about a majority of people in Miaoli overwhelming the four families, but about public interest and road safety, the county government’s economic development department director Shen Yu-pin (沈又斌) said.
If the four houses remained standing, they could block traffic and cause fatal traffic accidents. If that happened, the Miaoli County Government would be held criminally liable, Shen said.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
RSS