Female leaders of the anti-nuclear power movement in Taiwan said they became involved in the issue and the development of the movement because they were confident that women could play a “pivotal” role in the campaign that has swept the nation.
“I am glad that so many people stepped up and took action to voice their opinions on this important issue, but this is just the beginning. The road ahead is still long,” Irene Chen (陳藹玲), Fubon Cultural and Educational Foundation board director and founder of Mom Loves Taiwan, an association for mothers against nuclear power, said yesterday.
Chen, one of the leading figures in raising public awareness of the controversial construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮), spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a forum one day after nationwide anti-nuclear demonstrations. An estimated 200,000 people participated in the protests on the eve of the second anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident.
At the forum, organized by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, Chen said she did not pay attention to the issue until November last year, but she understood that “late is better than never” and women should step forward and make their voices heard.
After studying the issue, Chen contacted her friends, most of whom are artists, film directors or entertainers, to coordinate efforts to raise public awareness by releasing short films and other promotional materials.
The “celebrity effect” that Chen’s initiative generated was considered by some as the primary reason why the movement’s momentum has snowballed in a short period of time.
Chen credited Tokyo-based Taiwanese writer Liu Li-erh (劉黎兒), who also attended the forum, as her inspiration, as Liu was the first writer to write regularly on Japan’s nuclear situation and anti-nuclear movement in the aftermath of the 2011 disaster.
Women in Japan, especially those who have children, took instant and substantial actions right after the incident, Liu said, by demanding transparent and accurate information, strict food safety standard as well organization of anti-nuclear events that asked the Japanese government to abandon nuclear energy in an effort that has become known as the “Mother’s revolution” in Japan.
Inspired by a similar event in Japan, Liu said Taiwanese women planned to organize an “anti-nuclear 4-5-6” event in Taiwan, with a gathering to protest construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to be held at 6pm every Friday at Liberty Square in Taipei so people could gather and plan their next moves.
“We should not let the movement’s momentum fade,” Liu 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
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
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