Animal rights advocates yesterday urged the National Science Council (NSC) to revoke a license for an international collaborative project investigating seismic structural features of the earth’s crust in order to avoid harming marine life.
The activists made the appeal during a protest rally in front of the NSC in Taipei.
The council is sponsoring the Taiwan Integrated Geodynamics Research (TAIGER) project.
The earthquake study initiated by the Columbia University-affiliated Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is a sea floor investigation project in the exclusive economic zones of Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines, the conservationists said.
They said that air guns, which will be used under the sea in the study, could produce a noise equivalent to 265 decibels (dB), and could be a threat to sharks and dolphins.
The US government launched an environmental impact assessment last December and established measures aimed at minimizing adverse effects on the marine ecosystem last month, the activists said.
In comparison, the NSC granted a research permit for the project without getting the results of the impact assessment, the conservationists said.
Pointing out that the NSC convened a review meeting on the project last December but refused to make public the meetings’ minutes, the activists said they should be given a chance to provide relevant information and marine experts should be allowed to express their opinion to the NSC.
In response, NSC official Cheng Chien-hong (鄭建鴻) said boats used in the experiment will be equipped with facilities to protect marine animals.
He also said marine biologists would call a halt to the firing of air guns any time that noise limits are breached.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
RSS