Young Aborigines on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) yesterday protested for a clear deadline for the removal of nuclear waste from the island.
Raising flags on the island, the campaigners said they would not accept an apology from the government and would not accept further delays for removal of the waste material.
The Orchid Island Youth Movement Alliance, which organized the protest, said that since President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) apology last year to Aborigines for historical injustices, no action has yet been taken on the issue of nuclear waste on Orchid Island — where more than 90 percent of residents are Tao.
Photo courtesy of Yen Tzu-yu
The Lanyu nuclear waste storage facility was built in 1982 and stopped processing nuclear waste in 1996.
In February, the government reiterated its promise to relocate waste on the island and panned several potential sites including uninhabited islands near Keelung, as well as Kinmen, Penghu and Matsu counties.
Chanting slogans outside the waste facility, campaigners demanded that the government take concrete action and clarify a timetable for when waste relocation would be completed.
“We are not interested in empty promises or in talking things over,” one campaigner said.
Another said they are concerned that the issue is being overlooked by society and that they hoped to draw people’s attention to the issue.
“We demand that the government deal with this issue immediately,” they said.
The alliance said the storage of the waste on the island constitutes an illegal act by Taiwan Power Co.
The company had leased the space for waste storage, but that lease expired in 2014, the alliance said, adding that the township would not continue the lease.
Many of the island’s residents participated in yesterday’s protest, with others hanging banners on their doors in support.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A legislator yesterday called for authorities to investigate the sale of Chinese-made, Internet-connected karaoke machines containing “propaganda songs.” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said she was approached by a person who had discovered Chinese patriotic songs such as My Motherland (我的祖國) — which is commonly referred to as China’s “second national anthem” — in Chinese-made karaoke devices sold in Taiwan. The machines are popular, as they can connect to the Internet, providing access to thousands of songs, she said. One retailer, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the machines first entered the local market about three years ago, starting with