The Anti-Asia Cement Self-help Association yesterday said it would block access to mountains from Nov. 22 if the Legislative Yuan takes no satisfactory action to amend the Mining Act (礦業法).
Asia Cement has been under increasing scrutiny after aerial footage taken by the late filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林) revealed the environmental damage caused by its mining operations.
However, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has approved a request by the company to extend its mining license for 20 years, drawing the ire of the legislature and environmental groups.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Residents of nearby villages are dissatisfied because they were deprived of their rights to consultation as stated under Article 21 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), Taiwan Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association secretary-general Hsieh Meng-yu (謝孟羽) said.
The Executive Yuan earlier this month rejected Aboriginal groups’ appeal against the extension of the license and kicked the ball to the Legislative Yuan’s court, which shows that similar incidents will occur if the Mining Act is not amended, Hsieh said.
Article 31 of the Mining Act effectively grants mining rights — which belong to the nation and the public — to certain corporations, Citizen of the Earth Taiwan representative Huang Ching-ting (黃靖庭) said.
Reviews of such licenses are simply a formality and no longer offer effective management of corporations by the government, Huang said, adding that it was unreasonable that the administrative branch had to offer compensation to companies if their license extensions were rejected.
A draft amendment to the Mining Act removes Article 31, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said, adding that the amendment would be given legislative priority when the new legislative session begins.
The Legislative Yuan would not to adopt the Executive Yuan’s versions of the drafts word for word, Gao said.
New Power Party Executive Chairman (NPP) Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that the NPP would stand with the other legislative caucuses and seek to expedite passage of the amendment.
There will be stricter administrative and environmental assessment regulations with regard to handing corporations’ licenses for mining rights, Huang said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,