Amid rising safety concerns related to the Taipei Dome project, the Songshan Tree Protection Volunteer Union yesterday called on Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to adopt a bolder stance in negotiations with Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) about the controversial Taipei Dome project, while reasserting that it would continue its campaign until the project is terminated.
Union director Yu Yi (游藝) yesterday said regarding recent remarks by Ko about the project that the Taipei City Government should give up its “flip-flop” stance and announce a plan to demolish the Taipei Dome.
He said that construction of the structure has fallen seriously behind schedule and caused obvious land subsidence in areas surrounding the construction site — both of which Yu said are evidence of Farglory’s “poor work” and solid points that would help the city government win possible lawsuits filed by Farglory if Ko decides to invalidate the company’s contract.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao
“The Taipei City Government should not be so afraid of potential lawsuits or compensation. It has a fairly good chance of winning,” he said.
People opposed to the project have said that it has been rife with corruption from the bidding and contracting process, managed by the administration of then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), to the environmental impact assessment during former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) time in office.
Ko last month said the Taipei Clean Government Committee is “decrypting” data related to dealings between former administrations and Farglory, and also called into question Ma’s and Hau’s integrity.
Yu also rejected comments that surfaced recently that say the Dome must be completed to avoid MRT Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station from being seriously compromised.
“Tearing down the Dome and potential safety hazards are two separate things. While it is true that the underground base of the Dome has impacted the MRT station and it must be completed, the Dome itself has nothing to do with the station and demolishing it would not be a problem,” he said.
In response to an allegation by Farglory last week that the tree protection volunteers illegally occupy a sidewalk adjacent to the construction site, Yu said that the corporation last year unsuccessfully sued union members who physically blocked one of its gravel trucks, providing as proof a non-prosecution agreement issued by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, which proclaimed the union’s right to campaign is protected by the freedom of speech.
“I hope Farglory takes back its inadequate comment,” he said.
He said that the union has been collecting petitions from Taipei residents for a plebiscite to determine the fate of the Taipei Dome, and an online petition would be launched soon.
“We hope to defend and promote the values we believe to be right for this city, so that future generations will know that a group of people once stood up against inadequate development by large corporations,” Yu said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching