Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians yesterday urged New Taipei City (新北市) Mayor (朱立倫) to clearly state his position on the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the city’s Gongliao District (貢寮), saying that as the head of the administrative zone where three nuclear power plants are located, there should be no ambiguity regarding his position on the issue.
On Monday, Chu said that Taiwan is not qualified to use nuclear energy because it is still unable to deal with the problem of nuclear waste, and that the safety issue should be a priority over the construction of another nuclear power plant.
The DPP’s New Taipei City office director Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) and its Taipei City office director Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that Chu’s remarks “failed to look after the interests of residents in New Taipei City” and he sounded “more like [he was] speaking in the capacity of a president.”
As the country is engaged in heated debate over a national referendum on whether to suspend construction of the nuclear power plant — which has already cost more than NT$300 billion (US$10 billion) — the first question for Chu as New Taipei City mayor is whether the votes of city residents should be weighted in the national poll because of the direct impact of the power plant on their lives, Lo said.
“It seemed to me that Chu made those comments with the political competition between him and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) in mind. That was why he spoke more like a premier or a president, rather than the New Taipei City mayor,” Lo added.
Regarding Chu’s pledge that a nuclear safety watchdog committee under his administration would monitor the power plant’s safety measures to the strictest standards, Lo said that no individual or institution is able to guarantee the safety of a nuclear power plant, because there is always the risk of accidents occurring.
Lo urged Chu to stop the rhetoric and state his position publicly, adding that the mayor likely holds an anti-nuclear stance, judging from his remarks in interviews.
Chuang also questioned Chu’s ambiguous position, saying the mayor “is most qualified to voice the city’s opposition to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.”
“He should have been more outspoken about the safety of city residents and their livelihoods,” Chuang said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS