Environmentalists expressed opposition yesterday to the government’s plan to build a new mountainside roadway linking Suao (蘇澳) and Hualien, arguing that it would be as damaging to the environment as the mothballed Suao-Hualien freeway project.
Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) called the plan “old wine in a new bottle,” saying it would follow a route that is almost identical to that of the freeway project.
Pan said the new project’s impact on the environment would not be any less serious just because the project has a different name.
The original plan was to build a freeway between Suao and Hualien to replace the winding roadway that cuts through the coastal mountains and is often blocked by landslides during periods of heavy rain. That project, which would have required extensive drilling of tunnels, sparked great controversy because of its potential impact on the surrounding ecosystem and was strongly opposed by environmental groups.
It was ultimately rejected by the Environmental Protection Administration’s environmental impact assessment panel in April.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said on Wednesday that the government was planning an alternative to the existing coastal Suhua Highway.
Planning for the new project is expected to be completed in the second half of next year, after which an environmental impact assessment will be conducted, Mao said.
Mao said the new road, which is likely to begin in Suao, Ilan County, and end in Chongde (崇德), Hualien County, would probably be an expressway rather than a freeway.
Hualien County Government Secretary-General Huang Chi-pin said yesterday that residents of Hualien were expecting a road to be built on which they could travel safely and it did not matter what it was called.
Huang said that he hoped the project would be implemented as soon as possible as it would improve the wellbeing of Hualien residents.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents