Referendum proposals on protecting the Datan algal reefs, barring pork imports containing ractopamine and how to schedule referendums have received enough signatures to advance, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday.
However, a final decision on whether the proposals would be put to a vote is expected on Friday next week, after a commission review, it said.
If the three proposed referendums are approved, they are expected to be conducted on Aug. 28 alongside a proposal to restart work on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
The nuclear referendum was approved last year and is to be voted on that day, the CEC said.
Rescue Datan’s Algal Reefs Alliance convener Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) last year initiated a referendum proposal aimed at protecting reefs off Datan Village (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) amid plans to build a CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.
It gained 643,371 valid signatures, far surpassing the required level, the commission said.
The proposed referendum would ask: “Do you agree that CPC’s LNG terminal should be relocated from its planned site on the algal reef coast of Datan and its adjacent waters?”
Two referendum questions proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) also cleared the second of two hurdles before being put to a vote.
One of them is aimed at overriding the Democratic Progressive Party government’s policy easing restrictions on imports of pork products with residue of the livestock drug ractopamine, with the petition garnering 461,594 valid signatures.
The proposal was initiated by KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲), which asks: “Do you agree to a total ban on the importation of pork and related products containing leanness enhancing additives (ractopamine and other beta agonists)?”
A referendum initiated by KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) asks: “Do you agree that a referendum should be held concurrently with a national election if it complies with the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and if the election is set to take place within a six-month period following the referendum’s establishment?”
That proposal gained 456,100 valid signatures, the commission said.
There are two hurdles to clear to get a referendum initiative to a vote. The first requires the signatures of 0.01 percent of the eligible voters in the most recent presidential election, which would be 1,931 people based on the 19,311,105 people eligible to vote in last year’s vote. In the second stage, an initiative must collect the signatures of 1.5 percent of eligible voters in the most recent presidential election, or 289,667 people.
For a referendum to pass, at least 25 percent of eligible voters, or about 5 million people, must vote for it, and votes for must exceed votes against.
The KMT yesterday announced that tomorrow it is to hold events in 21 cities and counties to promote its referendum proposals.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS