Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung(林義雄) yesterday announced that he is to go on a hunger strike on Tuesday next week to urge the government to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
In a press release, Lin — who is well-known for his advocacy for the anti-nuclear movement, condemned the government for insisting on continuing building the plant — despite most public opinion polls showing that the majority of Taiwanese are against the plant being put into operation.
“The controversy has been there for almost three decades. More and more people are now starting to realize that electricity is in abundant supply in Taiwan and the plant is a meaningless squandering of time and money,” said Lin, who recently joined a group of academics and politicians who are seeking to establish a political group called Taiwan Citizen Union.
“If the majority of the public supports stopping construction of the Gongliao plant and those in power still ignore their calls with sinister measures, then I would say that our democracy is in crisis,” Lin said, adding that the issue of nuclear power in Taiwan is one of “life and death,” citing the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The 73-year-old Lin said he had originally planned to start his indefinite hunger strike on March 24, but postponed it due to the Sunflower movement protests.
Lin will conduct his hunger strike at Gikong Presbyterian Church (義光教會) on Taipei’s Xinyi Road.
The church was converted from the Lin family’s former residence after his mother and twin daughters were murdered there on Feb. 28, 1980, by an unknown assailant.
His eldest daughter, Lin Huan-chin (林奐均), then nine years old, survived the attack.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods