A petrochemical complex project rebuffed by Taiwanese two years ago is proving equally unpopular among residents of Pengerang, Malaysia, some of whom have traveled to Taipei to voice their opposition. The visitors said the Taiwanese government should not “dump your unwanted garbage in somebody else’s homeland.”
Members of the Pengerang NGO Alliance and three Johor State legislative assemblymen, accompanied by members of the Changhua Environmental Protection Union and Yunlin County Shallow Waters Aquaculture Association and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), protested outside the Presidential Office yesterday, pleading for Taiwanese to be aware of the problem and asking for a response from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co, in which state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan, has a large stake, turned to Pengerang, a small town at the southeastern tip of Malaysia, after its bid to build its eighth naphtha cracker on the coastal wetlands in Changhua County was rejected.
Ee Chin-li (黃俊歷), one of the Malaysian assemblymen, said the environmental impact assessment for the petrochemical project is now in its final stage and while Kuokuang’s investment plan has been in place since 2011, it was not until the beginning of this year that the Malaysian government confirmed the project.
“But the land reclamation and the making of oil fuel tank for the project had already been completed by then,” he said.
“The Malaysian government has to be held responsible, but we would also like to ask President Ma, as [the leader of] the exporting country, to help halt the project,” assemblyman Tan Hong-pin (陳泓賓) said.
“We reject the entry of industries undertaking high pollution-generating and energy-consuming activities,” Tan said.
“Malaysia is not a dump for Taiwan’s wastes,” acting chairman of the Pengerang NGO Alliance Chua Peng-sian (蔡平先) said. “What the residents want is sustainable development, not pollution.”
“More than 3,600 ancestral graves and four temples of local Chinese descendants are to be leveled for the project, some of which date back hundreds of years,” Tan said.
Chua said the grave removals was a disgrace to the world’s Chinese descendants.
Just as Taiwanese environmentalists worried about the threat the complex would pose to the endangered humpback dolphins off Taiwan’s west coast, their Malaysian counterparts say the endangered dugongs inhabiting Malaysian coastal waters and lobsters that thrive off Pengerang would face a similar plight once the petrochemical industry put down its roots.
After Kuokuang’s project was ousted from Taiwan, “is it then okay for it to go to Malaysia to continue polluting the planet?” Tien said.
“People have to rethink the meaning of petrochemicals, as the supply of petroleum is waning, and the health hazards the industry brings about are immense,” she said.
Tien asked for CPC Corp’s to immediately divest itself from the project. She said the corporation should be thinking about the development of renewable energy technologies.
‘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
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
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
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