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.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard