Environmental groups yesterday urged the Council of Agriculture (COA) and the Ministry of the Interior to clarify their procedures for the removal of illegal facilities on farmland.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) last month said that demolishing 286 illegal factories built after May 20 last year was the government’s priority.
The Environmental Rights Foundation and other groups yesterday organized a workshop in Taipei, inviting officials to clarify their respective roles in the plan.
The agencies had decided to categorize illegal facilities built after May 20 last year into those under construction and those already built, Construction and Planning Agency senior technical specialist Yang Zhe-wei (楊哲維) said.
Developers building factories are to be required to halt construction and demolish their facilities before a given time, or the government would forcibly remove them, he said, citing the Building Act (建築法).
Owners of finished factories would face fines of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 (US$1,985 and US$9,927) and would also be given a deadline for removal, Yang said, adding that in line with the Regional Plan Act (區域計畫法, their electricity and water supply could be cut off if they do not obey.
The demolitions would be carried out by local governments, Yang said, adding that all the necessary regulations were in place.
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan researcher Pan Cheng-cheng (潘正正) asked if the COA and the ministry could establish clear standards for implementation, as different agencies appeared to have applied inconsistent criteria in the past.
“We have passed our standard operating procedures to local agencies,” COA technical specialist Tang Chen-hsin (唐晨欣) said.
While demolishing a built factory could cost about NT$2 million, cutting power and water supply as a first measure is more cost-efficient, she said.
Forcible removal would follow if an owner is fined for two or three consecutive rounds, Tang said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods