Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday said she would not give up her effort to initiate a local referendum to stop the installation of fuel rods in the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant if her appeal is rejected by the Taipei High Administrative Court next month.
Lu filed a provisional injunction in January after the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee in May last year rejected a proposal regarding the plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Oral arguments before the Taipei High Administrative Court ended yesterday and the court said it would issue a verdict on Aug. 5.
While most people assumed that the government had pledged to halt construction work on the power plant after former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) hunger strike in April, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration could resume construction any time, Lu told a press conference in Taipei.
“If Lin could risk his own life on the issue and force the government to announce the suspension, why can’t the 7.47 million people who reside in the plant’s mandatory evacuation zone decide their own fates?” Lu said.
The mandatory evacuation zone includes Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County.
Referendum proposals in Taipei, New Taipei City and Yilan County passed the petition threshold and were approved by the respective referendum review committees of both cities and Yilan County, but they were rejected by the Executive Yuan, which said the future of the controversial plant was an important national policy matter not suitable for local referendums.
Members of the Executive Yuan Referendum Review Committee were appointed by Ma, Lu said.
The central government is not justified in taking the right to hold a referendum away from those who live in the mandatory evacuation zone, she added.
If the administrative court rejects the appeal, Lu said she is considering asking DPP lawmakers to initiate another referendum proposal in the legislature that would cover the cities and counties in the mandatory evacuation zone.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS