The government has no plans to bring forward the commercial operations of the fourth nuclear power plant as safety remains its top priority, Executive Yuan spokesman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said.
Chiang dismissed local media reports that Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had asked the plant's builders to move its scheduled opening from the end of next year to Oct. 10 to coincide with the country's 100th founding anniversary next year.
Chiang said the premier was briefed by officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Atomic Energy Council and Taiwan Power Company earlier on Friday on the plant's construction progress, and Wu instructed them to monitor its building to ensure its safety.
Chiang quoted Wu as telling the officials at the meeting that “we've already waited 10 years, so there's no need to rush the work at the expense of the plant's safety.”
Chiang said Wu had put Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森) in charge of coordinating government agencies involved in the building of the plant to ensure it meets rigorous safety standards.
Chiang made the comments after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) called on the premier to refrain from pushing the plant's opening date.
Tien said the safety of the plant has been the cause of great public concern after its control room was gutted by a fire in March. Taiwan Power Company attributed the accident to an electrical short.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
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