Taiwan is to bolster critical infrastructure security with a force of 1,811 police officers before the end of the year, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said during a question-and-answer session at the legislature yesterday.
The officers — to be drawn from the National Police Agency’s Second Special Police Corps — would guard the nation’s key oil, water, electricity and telecom facilities against sabotage, Liu told the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee.
The Second Police Corps would receive additional personnel, equipment and training resources for the task, she said, adding that joint response drills against specific threats would be employed to ensure police effectiveness.
Photo: CNA
The Ministry of the Interior is to continue building resilience in local communities and expanding a disaster relief volunteer certification program to mitigate the effects of natural disasters, she said.
The ministry is enhancing its collaboration with groups, schools and other government departments to grow the 26,000-member disaster relief volunteer force to 50,000 by the end of the year, she said.
Additionally, from January to last month, the police closed 12,028 fraud investigations, busting 691 scam organizations and arresting 6,358 suspects, Liu said.
Police cut 626 phone lines being used for fraud, stopped 5,170 fraudulent schemes and prevented the loss of NT$305 million (US$9.44 million) to scams, she said.
The ministry drafted proposed laws on police use of forensic technology and communication security, and preventing fraud and money laundering, which the Executive Yuan has submitted to lawmakers for review, she said.
The ministry is to implement President William Lai’s (賴清德) policy to increase social housing to 1 million units, Liu added.
The initiative would add 250,000 new homes, 250,000 units under a subleasing and management service system and 500,000 subsidized units, she said.
The ministry aims to break ground on all of the initiative’s construction projects in northern Taiwan in two years and reach its 1 million social housing units goal in eight years, she said.
The government approved 1,152 urban renewal projects and 3,599 initiatives to repair or replace condemned buildings from January to last month, Liu said.
That marked a sevenfold increase in approved projects from the first five months of 2017, before the current urban renewal rules were implemented, she said.
The rise underscores the ministry’s need to revamp the process for approving and subsidizing such projects toward improving the speed of approvals and offering more incentives, she said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS