Environmentalists said yesterday that the Cabinet reshuffle was a further blow to the anti-nuclear movement, saying that the newly appointed heads of both the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) were not the right people for the jobs.
Activists said that they were opposed to incoming AEC chairman Hu Chin-piao (
"He totally ignored Taipower's (
The Control Yuan censured the Executive Yuan, the AEC, the EPA and Taipower in April 1999 because of the AEC's failure to follow the correct procedures when it issued the license.
In September 1995, the Control Yuan censured seven Cabinet agencies involved with the change in power output of the reactors. But the censure was totally ignored by the Cabinet.
In May 1999, the same seven agencies, including the EPA and the AEC, were again censured by the Control Yuan for failing to address the 1995 censures.
Yesterday, AEC officials said that they welcomed Hu's return, saying that Hu was very familiar with atomic energy-related administrative matters.
Meanwhile, Chou Po-lun (
Activists said Hau was unqualified for the job, having been trained in food science and technology, in which he holds a doctoral degree, rather than environmental science.
Hau currently teaches at the Graduate Institute of Food Science and Technology at National Taiwan University as well as being a legislator and a key New party functionary.
On Sunday, Hau stated that he supported the Cabinet's decision to resume construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
Pan said that outgoing EPA head Lin Jun-yi (
Lin has been an energetic pioneer in the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan since the 1980s.
In his well-known book, Opposing Nuclear Energy to Oppose Dictatorship (
During Lin's nine-month leadership of the EPA, he promoted alternative sources of energy, such as solar energy and wind energy.
Accompanied by US oil cleanup experts from Alaska, Lin yesterday inspected the half-sunk Greek cargo ship MV Amorgos, which caused an oil spill in Kenting National Park in southern Taiwan in mid-January.
It was the handling of the oil spill which eventually triggered the Cabinet's reshuffle, leading to Lin's ouster.
"I'll keep going with the oil cleanup work until I step down," Lin said yesterday.
Both the AEC and EPA posts will change hands tomorrow.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
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