Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Explosions expose poor governance

Taipei Times Editorial

The massive series of gas explosions that occurred from late Thursday night to early Friday morning in Greater Kaohsiung, claiming at least 28 lives and injuring 286 people, while at least two people remain missing, exposed fatal flaws that should have been addressed to avoid such a tragedy.

A top concern is underground urban planning, an issue that has hardly been discussed despite explosions from a gas leak in Kaohsiung having occurred in 1997.

Kaohsiung rocked by underground blasts

Taipei Times

Rescue personnel survey the wreckage after a series of explosions in Greater Kaohsiung early yesterday.
Photo: Toby Chang, Reuters

A series of suspected gas explosions that shook Greater Kaohsiung from late Thursday night to early yesterday morning claimed at least 26 lives and injured 269 people.

The blasts tore through the city’s roads and dug a 100m trench up to 1.8m deep. At least 1.5km of roadways were damaged.

Beijing-Seoul FTA suits Taiwan

Huang Tien-lin 黃天麟

Over the past several days, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has rolled out the propaganda machine to alarm the public about the impact on Taiwan that a free-trade agreement (FTA) between China and South Korea would have. The question is, will the China-South Korea pact actually threaten Taiwan in any way?

Taiwan should actually welcome a successful completion of trade negotiations between China and South Korea, and the more liberal the agreement the better for Taiwan it will be. There are several reasons for this.

Premier in court over violent evictions

Taipei Times

Protesters hold banners with Premier Jiang Yi-huah’s portrait outside the Taipei District Court yesterday, where he was questioned about the handling of the Sunflower movement protests.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Under a heavy police presence and with more than 100 demonstrators calling on him to resign, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday afternoon appeared in court to face charges of attempted murder filed against him and high-ranking police officers in a private prosecution over the violent crackdown on protesters who briefly took over the Executive Yuan in March.

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