The once-suspended construction of a wharf built for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant resumed in early May, making it possible for Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) to import a nuclear reactor from Japan next month, the company said yesterday.
In order not to delay the scheduled completion of the nuclear power plant in July 2006, Taipower would transfer one of two nuclear reactors currently being built in Japan to Kungliao at the end of next month, officials said.
"It means that we have to have the wharf working by then," said Huang Huei-yu (黃惠予), the head of Taipower's public affairs department.
The shipment of the reactor was originally scheduled for late this month, Huang said.
"We don't think the delay will have any effect on the plant's scheduled date of completion," Huang said.
Huang said that Public Construction Commission Vice Chairman Kuo Ching-chiang (
The construction of the wharf had been halted in mid-January, when Premier Yu Shyi-kun decided to launch an investigation into the relation between coastal erosion and construction of the wharf.
Last month, the investigation report suggested that the loss of sand at the nearby Fulung Beach could be attributed to stresses on the environment caused by construction of the wharf.
However, ministers without portfolio Lin Sheng-feng (
On Thursday, Liu Chao-hsiung (劉照雄), Taipower's site manager for the Lungmen Construction Office (龍門施工處) in Kungliao, convened a meeting with local residents.
According to Liu, on May 1 the Cabinet's Ministry of Economic Affairs ordered Taipower to resume construction of the wharf, further deepening the dock.
Local residents and anti-nuclear environmentalists, however, vigorously expressed their opposition to the decision, and angrily left the meeting.
"It looks like the Cabinet failed to coordinate its subordinate agencies on the issue," Wu Wen-tung (吳文通), spokesman for the Kungliao-based Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Association, said yesterday.
Both Wu and environmentalists called for a new, comprehensive evaluation to be conducted by the Environmental Protection Administration.
When the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) was enacted in 1994, environmentalists began highlighting what they said were questionable aspects of the assessment conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission.
Lai Wei-chieh (賴偉傑), secretary-general of the Green Citizen Action Alliance, said yesterday that resumption of construction revealed that the Cabinet's investigation into coastal erosion had no substantial influence.
Lai said that the Cabinet's performance in the matter demonstrates that promoting sustainable development had never been the government's priority.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
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Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday established a friendship group with their counterparts in Ukraine to promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. A ceremony in Taipei for the Taiwan-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Association, initiated by DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), was attended by lawmakers and officials, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) and European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan Director Lutz Gullner. The increasingly dire situation in Ukraine is a global concern, and Taiwan cannot turn its back when the latter is in need of help, as the two countries share many common values and interests,
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