Nuclear power opponents yesterday invited President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to participate in a parade on Saturday next week to stand up against nuclear waste disposal.
Tsai was approached because her administration came up with the “nuclear-free homeland by 2025” policy and because three nuclear power plants in New Taipei City are near Taipei, National Anti-Nuclear Action Platform spokesperson Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) told a news conference outside the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.
In February, Hou said that he was not opposed to using nuclear power, but safety was his chief concern, after former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) had earlier that month announced that he would consider starting up the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant if he is elected president next year.
Photo: CNA
Chu’s remarks drew criticism due to his previous opposition to storing nuclear waste in New Taipei City, at Shihmen District’s (石門) Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant and in Wanli District’s (萬里) Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant.
Mom Loves Taiwan secretary-general Yang Shun-mei (楊順美) said that the New Taipei City Government was likely incapable of responding to a nuclear disaster, adding that the evacuation of people proved difficult after a colored-powder dust explosion at the Formosa Fun Coast water park in Bali District (八里) in 2015.
Ko should evaluate whether the Taipei City Government could evacuate residents in the event of a nuclear disaster at the Jinshan or Guosheng plants, which are only about 40km away, Yang said.
Taiwan Renewable Energy Alliance director Kao Ju-ping (高茹萍) urged Tsai to defend her ideal of phasing out nuclear power and developing renewable energy by joining the parade, even though her policy of a nuclear-free homeland was scrapped after a majority voted in favor of a pro-nuclear referendum on Nov. 24 last year.
Simultaneous parades against nuclear power are to be staged on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard and in Kaohsiung’s Aozihdi Forest Park (凹仔底森林公園), the National Anti-Nuclear Action Platform said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift