A judicial reform subcommittee meeting yesterday discussed the prosecution of environmental pollution cases, issuing recommendations that violators be punished more severely and a special fund set up to pay for expenses incurred during investigations into and trials of suspected environmental crimes.
The third subcommittee of the national affairs conference on judicial reform convened its second meeting at the offices of the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption, headed by Academia Sinica researcher Chu Hai-yuan (瞿海源) and Hsinchu County Prosecutor Chen Jui-jen (陳瑞仁), with Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) in attendance.
Chiu and members of the committee presented a report which outlined a number of recommendations, including the formulation of a new set of regulations specifically for the prosecution of companies suspected of dumping hazardous waste or the discharge of untreated effluent and other polluting activities.
The report called for longer jail terms and higher fines for such offenders, and for the law to allow for confiscation of violating companies’ assets and illegal profits.
The report also recommended that fines be put into a special fund to help finance future investigations into and prosecutions of suspected environmental offenders, because prosecutors and police agencies have complained about the difficulty and high expenses incurred in investigating such cases.
“Most industrial dumping and other incidences of pollution occur in out-of-way locations... These have proven difficult to reach, and require units with special equipment to gain access and collect samples. It has deterred some prosecutors and police units from proceeding with investigations,” the committee report 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:
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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