Taiwan plans to mass-produce anti-radiation protective clothing and iodine pills to be ready in case the nation is exposed to radioactive contamination from Japan, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said.
“The government still has a stockpile of more than 200,000 anti-radiation suits, but its inventory of iodine tablets might fall short of actual need,” Shih said when asked by lawmakers about the country’s ability to cope with radioactive fallout.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has been in contact with manufacturers to discuss mass-producing the items to meet potential demand, Shih said.
“The ministry will commission local pharmaceutical companies to start mass production of iodine pills when necessary,” he said. “The companies have sufficient materials and could immediately begin production whenever the Department of Health gives the green light.”
Shih estimated that Taiwan’s pharmaceutical companies could produce hundreds of thousands of iodine tablets per day, and said the iodine pills would be more effective in protecting the thyroid gland from radiation than salt.
Shih also brushed aside lawmakers’ concerns that waters off Taiwan could be contaminated as a result of the radiation released from Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, saying the possibility of such a development was extremely low.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on Friday has pledged that the Executive Yuan would require the ministry to provide the public with sufficient protective gear in a nuclear crisis as if the country were at war.
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:
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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