Chiayi County’s Budai Township (布袋) Mayor Chen Feng-mei (陳鳳梅) yesterday said she has not broken a law in her 30 years as a politician and plans to fully comply with an investigation into alleged illegal landfill operations.
The Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday searched the Budai Township Office, Chen’s (陳鳳梅) residence and the office of a Chiayi County councilor surnamed Lo (羅) as part of an investigation into an alleged illegal landfill in November last year.
The office on Friday summoned all individuals involved in the case, releasing Chen on NT$100,000 bail, and releasing a Budai Township Office Division of Construction director-general surnamed Fang (方) and a solar power company manager surnamed Hsieh (謝) on NT$50,000 bail each.
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
Three construction soil disposal business owners surnamed Wang (王), Yang (楊) and Hsieh (謝) dumped leftover construction soil on agricultural land in a fishery as part of their work on a power generation project in Budai in November last year, the prosecutors’ office said.
The three ignored warnings in December last year from the Chiayi County Bureau of Environmental Protection, but allegedly continued to contravene the law as late as February, the office said.
Further investigations led prosecutors to allege that Chen, Lo, Fang and Hsieh were involved in the decisions to dispose of the material, it said.
The office on Friday asked the Chiayi District Court to detain Wang and revoke his rights to visitation, citing the possibility of collusion and destruction of evidence, while Yang is to serve 18 months in prison for a separate offense.
Lo did not respond to the summons and must make an affidavit by tomorrow or be subpoenaed, the prosecutors’ office said.
“I will not stand for anyone to use the fishery and solar power generation project to illegally refill farmland with leftover construction soil,” Chen said.
The township has cooperated with the county government’s efforts and requested that the owners remove the leftover soil from the site, she added.
The heads of three major US banks on Wednesday pledged that they would withdraw from the Chinese market if Washington imposed sanctions on Beijing in response to an invasion of Taiwan. JP Morgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told lawmakers at a hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services in Washington that the three banks would follow the guidance of the US government to exit China if necessary. The three bankers made the pledge after US Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer asked the three if they
HIGH STAKES: An attack on Taiwan could prompt a joint response from the US and Japan, and trigger a global conflict that could bring down the CCP, Liu Tai-ying said The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would not be able to launch an invasion of Taiwan for at least another 10 years, Taiwan Research Institute founder Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) said on Friday. To occupy Taiwan, China needs to transport at least 300,000 to 400,000 troops across the Taiwan Strait during battle, but it would lack the ability to do so for at least another decade, said Liu, a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) treasurer and a close aide to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The challenges that China would face during an attempted invasion of Taiwan would be even greater than those
CHINA CRITIC: Prime ministerial candidate Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner in today’s election, said that she would not renew a Belt and Road Initiative deal with Beijing Italian lawmaker Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner to become the country’s next prime minister, is expected to reverse course on Italy’s support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and strengthen ties with Taiwan if a coalition headed by her party wins the country’s general election today. “Without any doubt, if there is a center-right government, it is sure that Taiwan will be an essential concern for Italy,” Meloni told the Central News Agency in an interview. Italians are to vote in a snap election triggered by the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi following a failed attempt to get his coalition partners
HAWAII MODEL: While Hawaii held a referendum on becoming the 50th US state, Taiwan has never applied to join the People’s Republic of China, Miles Yu said China comparing Taiwanese independence to Hawaii seeking independence from the US is illogical, as Taiwan has never applied to be a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hudson Institute senior fellow Miles Yu (余茂春) said over the weekend. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who is in New York for the UN General Assembly, has given multiple talks asserting Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. In a speech to the Asia Society on Thursday, Wang likened Taiwan to Hawaii. “Just as the US would not allow Hawaii to break away,” Beijing “reserves the right” to seek unification, Wang told the gathering. The
RSS