Mandatory local referendums would be crucial in protecting people’s lives, which is the No. 1 priority in discussing the dispute over construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City (新北市), the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday.
“This is why the TSU would propose to amend the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Control Act (核子反應器設施管制法) by authorizing a mandatory local referendum to be held in a 50km radius evacuation zone from any installation of nuclear reactors, fuel rods and nuclear power plant operations,” TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) told a press conference.
As political parties have engaged in heated debates over the high threshold of the current Referendum Act (公民投票法), Huang said, the amendment would help the policy debate move forward.
If the regulation was amended, a local referendum in Taipei City, New Taipei City, Keelung City and Yilan County — the four administrative zones that face a direct impact if a nuclear disaster occurred — would be held with the outcome of the referendum determined by simple plurality, Huang said.
The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) proposal to lower the unusually high threshold stated in the referendum act would be time-consuming and likely be vetoed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the legislature, he added.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) founder and former chairman Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said people who live within a 50km radius of a nuclear power plant are those most entitled to have a say about the plant, and this was a common practice in other countries.
If people who live on the outlying islands could vote in local referendums to determine whether a casino resort would be built and whether they would accept the storage of nuclear waste, the people in northern Taiwan should also be able to have their voices heard on the issue of a nuclear power plant, Shih said.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
A British man was arrested for attempting to smuggle 14.37kg of marijuana into Taiwan through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei Customs said late yesterday. The man, who arrived from Bangkok at 9pm on Friday, was asked by customs officers to open his luggage during a random inspection, Taipei Customs said in a news release. The passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, refused to open his suitcase and tried to flee the restricted area. He was eventually subdued by three customs officials and an Aviation Police Bureau officer. A later search of his checked luggage uncovered 14.37kg of marijuana buds. The case was handed over
RSS