The Executive Yuan yesterday repeated its resolve to pursue a nuclear-free homeland and said that its plan to phase out the nation's three nuclear power plants in 40 years remains unchanged.
Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (
"While our determination to achieve the ultimate goal of a nuclear-free homeland remains unchanged, we hope the legislature passes the draft bill promoting a nuclear-free home as soon as possible, Chen said.
The Executive Yuan approved the draft bill of the promotion of a nuclear-free home in May 2003. The bill would ban the development of nuclear weapons, gradually phase out the use of nuclear power and boost the use of renewable energy to meet future needs.
Under an action plan mapped out by the Cabinet's Council for the Promotion of a Nuclear-free Home, the Executive Yuan would inject NT$3 billion a year to reach the goals set down in the bill.
The Cabinet hopes to see 10 percent of the nation's power generated by renewable-energy sources by 2010 and 12 percent by 2020.
The Cabinet also hopes to see the annual production value of the clean-energy industry increase from NT$1.5 billion to NT$10 billion.
The action plan seeks to ease regulations on land acquisition for wind-power plants to boost the development of renewable energy.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday said that the DPP's central standing committee passed a resolution opposing the building of new nuclear power plants on April 22, 2003, and that the party will never betray its core principles.
"Pursing a non-nuclear homeland and ensuring Taiwan's sustainable development is a consistent and long-term goal for the DPP, which is also a consensus agreed on by both the ruling and opposition parties in 2002," Chang said.
"[A non-nuclear homeland] has already become an ideal recognized by all parts of society, and we are resolute that any policy pertaining to nuclear power has to be based on this public consensus," Chang said.
"The DPP will not accept any suggestion that goes against the principle of a `non-nuclear homeland' since it violates our long-term core value and strays from mainstream public opinion," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching