The Zero-Nuke Festival hosted by the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance started in Taipei yesterday with works by the Taiwan-Japan Joint No Nuke Illustration Exposition and the Hibakusha Film Exposition.
The Hibakusha Exposition Association, with the Japanese word hibakusha meaning “victims overtly exposed to radiation,” is an event started by Japanese filmmaker Ittetsu Morishita and five other filmmakers equally concerned about victims of nuclear materials.
The six filmmakers have gone to the sites of nuclear disasters and filmed the results of nuclear usage, and their travels have taken them across South Korea, Japan, Belarus, Tahiti, the US, Australia and other nations.
In the Contaminated Slipper piece exhibited yesterday, the group chose to show nuclear contamination by exposing the minute traces of contamination on a slipper found in the alert zone near the beach on Fukushima by photographer Takashi Morizumi.
The photograph caption said: “It’s not hard to imagine how terrible it would be if the radiation made its way into the human body and started destroying cellular DNA.”
Another picture after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011, showed a village in the danger zone devoid of people with only a few dogs wandering around. A Tokyo Electric Power Company banner reads: “Nuclear power, the wonderful energy source of the future.”
The Taiwan-Japan joint anti-nuclear illustration exposition displays 220 illustrations, including some by Jimmy (幾米) and 19 other renowned illustrators who have also put their work up for sale.
The alliance is to hold an outdoor concert, as well as a series of film expositions and seminars today and tomorrow and is to invite director Ko I-chen (柯一正) and writers Hsiao Yeh (小野), Hao Kuang-tsai (郝廣才) and Giddens Ko (九把刀) to participate in the events.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
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A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it