A Taipei Times special investigative report into the aftermath of the Formosa Plastics Group's dumping of toxic waste in the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville in December 1998, has prompted Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) to demand a reinvestigation of the safety of the former dumpsite and the health condition of nearby villagers and port workers "as soon as possible."
Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) recently was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a letter to The Phnom Penh Post, MSF's Cambodian representative Maurits Van Pelt describes the Taipei Times report of chronic illnesses and the deaths of as many as 14 residents of the Bettrang Commune -- directly downstream from the former dump site -- as "alarming news ... not what we expected to happen."
"We thought the health problems would disappear rather quickly," Van Pelt said. "However, if, as we read, by now 14 strong and healthy people have died, it strengthens earlier suspicions that other toxins [besides mercury] are involved as well."
MSF provided treatment to port workers and Sihanoukville residents who handled the 2,900 tons of FPG mercury-tainted waste that were dumped in an open field some 15km outside Sihanoukville last December. In February 1999, MSF conducted a one-month study of 1,300 individuals exposed to the waste that indicated the health effects were strictly short-term.
Two individuals died displaying symptoms of acute mercury poisoning just days after the dump-ing, while nearby residents and Sihanoukville port workers complained of chronic fatigue and dizziness since exposure to the waste.
"As it looks, it is recommended to appoint as soon as possible a highly qualified independent toxicologist to reinvestigate the situation," Van Pelt said..
Although he further noted that the type of sophisticated testing required to establish links between the FPG waste and chronic health problems "far exceeds [MSF] competence," he has offered to provide "many thousands of pages of health data" gathered by MSF teams to more qualified investigators.
"Hopefully, these medical records can help independent scientists to establish objectively the deterioration of the health of the victims as a consequence of their contact with [FPG] waste," Van Pelt wrote in his letter to the Post.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS