An environmental protection advocacy group yesterday called Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administrative team "shameless and incompetent" for the way they dealt with the controversies surrounding the construction of the cable car system in Beitou, a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project.
Lin Tzu-ling (
Lin said that the city government then turned the BOT project proposal over to the Yangmingshan National Park Administration two years ago, which in turn was responsible for submitting the plan to the Ministry of Interior for its approval. Lin said that the city government altered the functions of certain facilities before submitting the proposal, however.
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"How can Ma hope to convince anyone that the city government did not know what the content of the contract was when they were the ones who signed it?" Lin asked.
Lin called on the city government to halt the construction project and conduct an environmental impact assessment.
Ma responded by saying that the construction project did not require an environmental impact assessment report because the land used did not exceed 10 hectares. The city was happy to follow the procedures, Ma said, and was not involved in the scandal surrounding the contractors.
Officials from the Taipei City Government held a press conference to respond to the environmental group's charges.
Chen Yung-ren (
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A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
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