Environmental groups yesterday filed an application with the Cabinet’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee requesting an investigation into whether the land on which state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan plans to build a liquefied natural gas terminal had been obtained legally.
CPC plans to build a gas terminal off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) and expects it to start supplying gas to state-run Taiwan Power Co’s Datan Power Plant from 2022.
Environmentalists working to protect Datan’s ecosystem from damage by the project have recently shifted their focus to CPC’s allegedly questionable holding.
The coast belongs to the public and should not have been sold, as stipulated by the Land Act (土地法), Taoyuan Local Union director Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) told a news conference at the legislature in Taipei yesterday.
However, Tung Ting Gas Corp in 2003 bought the land for NT$1 billion (US$33.9 million at the current exchange rate) and CPC in 2016 acquired Tung Ting for about NT$2.2 billion after the latter failed to obtain the rights to transmit natural gas, he said.
The deal was possibly related to the KMT’s ill-gotten assets, given that 47.3 percent of Tung Ting’s shares were held by China Development Financial Holding Corp, which was owned by the party, he said.
A political party’s property could be considered ill-gotten if it was attained through disproportionate means after Aug. 15 1945, lawyer Chen Hsien-cheng (陳憲政) said, citing Article 5 of the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例).
Transitional justice should come before environmental justice, New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said, calling on the government to clarify the legitimacy of CPC’s asset before continuing the project’s environmental impact assessment.
Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) said the group would also petition the Control Yuan today to investigate the case.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS