The Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency yesterday delayed deliberations on moving railway lines in Tainan underground following contentious talks with residents and environmental groups.
Officials in the agency’s group working on the project made a motion to require the Tainan City Government to provide a further response to activists’ concerns following a marathon meeting, punctuated by occasional shouting and table pounding.
Their decision to delay a decision on the project until a third meeting represented a partial victory for activists, who had vowed to stop the plan’s passage.
While moving the railway underground has been discussed for decades, the latest round of controversy concerns city plans to shift the line eastward to facilitate tunneling efforts, appropriating land from several hundred residents.
Opponents contend that the Tainan City Government and the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) have failed to demonstrate the shift’s necessity, maintaining that engineering challenges can be addressed without resorting to substantial land expropriation.
“This is a Tainan version of MeHAS City (美河市),” residents’ self-help association convener Chen Chih-hsiao (陳致曉) said at the meeting.
Expropriation of prime property in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) for the MeHAS project was ruled unconstitutional last year by the Council of Grand Justices, exceeding what was needed to construct MRT facilities.
“The Tainan City Government and TRA have failed to clearly explain that plans are for the purpose of moving the railway underground and not for the purpose of the park included in city zoning plans,” he said, while other members stated they were concerned that extra land appropriation had been included to allow for development projects to finance moving the railway underground.
“This meeting should not even have been held today,” Chen said, adding that it went against the conclusion of a previous meeting with agency officials hosted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators.
The meeting concluded that administrative procedures related to the project should be put on hold until necessity of the proposed eastward shift and related land expropriation were clarified, he said.
He added that the meeting also called for considerations of the project to be halted until a joint committee of residents and officials is established to draft a plan minimizing expropriation.
“There has to be such a committee to force the government to admit its mistake,” he said, adding that while Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) likes to say that his Chinese nickname, “Laishen” (賴神) — which means “Lai the Immortal” — stands for “listen,” in reality it stands for “lying.”
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
RSS