Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) has not given up the hope of storing its nuclear waste overseas but the matter will not be easily settled as political factors will be involved, Taipower vice president Hsu Hwai-chiung (
Independent Legislator Li Ao (
"Taipower should face the matter squarely, and argue with its professional knowledge," Li said.
"It should tell the people and government that the issues of the fourth nuclear power plant and nuclear power waste are right before them. If the issues are not resolved, Taiwan will have no peace," Li said.
He said the nation has tried to store nuclear waste in North Korea without success because in accordance with international norms nuclear waste can only be stored in one's own country.
Li said the Constitution still enshrines the "one China" principle and that if he were commissioned to represent Taiwan in negotiations with Beijing, he would push to store Taipower's nuclear waste in northwest China.
He also inquired about the losses incurred from the suspension of the fourth nuclear power plant in late 2000 and the resumption of the construction early the following year.
Hsu said direct losses stood at more than NT$3 billion (US$90.9 million), although Lee claimed that the losses could hit NT$350 billion according to an estimate by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.
Taipower officials have said there are 97,672 barrels of low-level radioactive waste stored on Orchid Island and that they are hoping to complete repacking operations by 2010 before sending it to a final disposal destination.
Taipower has estimated that the Executive Yuan will decide on the final disposal location by 2011 and that construction of the site will be completed by 2016.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the