Investigations into allegations that an Italian businessman helped North Korea to dump radioactive nuclear waste in the ocean near Taiwan have been inconclusive, the Atomic Energy Council said on Friday.
Italian media cited declassified documents from an Italian intelligence service as saying that Giorgio Comerio, who is suspected of trafficking nuclear materials, allegedly disposed of 200,000 barrels of North Korean radioactive waste in the ocean near Taiwan in the 1990s and was paid US$227 million.
Council Vice Minister Chiou Syh-tsong (邱賜聰) said that the reports could not be confirmed and could be a mistake on the part of the Italian intelligence service, as state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) in the 1990s planned to ship 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste to North Korea.
However, Chiu said the possibility that the barrels were dumped near Taiwan could not be ruled out and the council would continue to push for radiation monitoring in the Taiwan Strait.
Based on the available information, “we could not rule out the possibility of dumping and will continue to monitor the Taiwan Strait,” Chiu said.
According to council data, radiation levels in waters near Keelung and Kaohsiung are normal.
Radiation tests of marine life offshore and in fish markets have also been normal, but the council does not have information on radiation levels in the Taiwan Strait, Chiu said.
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency has not detected abnormal levels of radiation in the Taiwan Strait, Chiu said.
Chiu said that the council has not seen the declassified documents from Italy, but personnel stationed overseas have continued to work on the matter.
He said that Taiwan has not sent any radioactive waste overseas and all waste is stored on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) or within the nation’s three operational nuclear power plants.
A civic group accused the council of trying to hoodwink the public.
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:
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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