Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday said she would not give up her effort to initiate a local referendum to stop the installation of fuel rods in the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant if her appeal is rejected by the Taipei High Administrative Court next month.
Lu filed a provisional injunction in January after the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee in May last year rejected a proposal regarding the plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Oral arguments before the Taipei High Administrative Court ended yesterday and the court said it would issue a verdict on Aug. 5.
While most people assumed that the government had pledged to halt construction work on the power plant after former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) hunger strike in April, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration could resume construction any time, Lu told a press conference in Taipei.
“If Lin could risk his own life on the issue and force the government to announce the suspension, why can’t the 7.47 million people who reside in the plant’s mandatory evacuation zone decide their own fates?” Lu said.
The mandatory evacuation zone includes Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County.
Referendum proposals in Taipei, New Taipei City and Yilan County passed the petition threshold and were approved by the respective referendum review committees of both cities and Yilan County, but they were rejected by the Executive Yuan, which said the future of the controversial plant was an important national policy matter not suitable for local referendums.
Members of the Executive Yuan Referendum Review Committee were appointed by Ma, Lu said.
The central government is not justified in taking the right to hold a referendum away from those who live in the mandatory evacuation zone, she added.
If the administrative court rejects the appeal, Lu said she is considering asking DPP lawmakers to initiate another referendum proposal in the legislature that would cover the cities and counties in the mandatory evacuation zone.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
ENHANCING EFFICIENCY: The apron can accommodate 16 airplanes overnight at Taoyuan airport while work on the third runway continues, the transport minister said A new temporary overnight parking apron at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to start operating on Friday next week to boost operational efficiency while the third runway is being constructed, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The apron — one of the crucial projects in the construction of the third runway — can accommodate 16 aircraft overnight at the nation’s largest international airport, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told reporters while inspecting the new facility yesterday morning. Aside from providing the airport operator with greater flexibility in aircraft parking during the third runway construction,
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
RSS