President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that the success Sweden and Finland have had in finding permanent storage sites for their nuclear waste means that the countries could serve as a model for Taiwan’s nuclear industry.
Ma said that finding a place to store the nation’s radioactive waste is a problem because whatever site is chosen is always met with opposition from anti-nuclear activists and local residents.
Sweden and Finland are expected to complete building underground repositories for storing their radioactive waste in 2027 and 2022 respectively, the president said.
In Sweden, the choice of Osthammar as the storage location obtained the support of more than 80 percent of local residents, he said.
“We very much hope to learn from Sweden’s and Finland’s experiences,” Ma said as he received several experts from the two Nordic countries who are visiting Taiwan to attend a conference on radioactive waste disposal.
In the 1980s, Sweden voted in a referendum to shut down all of its nuclear reactors. However, the country has since reversed course and is now planning to build new reactors.
Ma said he was told that the Swedish government has been very successful in communicating with the Swedish public, the majority of whom think that Sweden needs nuclear energy to meet its economic development needs.
In the wake of the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, Taiwan set a goal of gradually phasing out its use of nuclear power.
However, Ma said that until this goal is achieved, the nation must find an alternative to atomic energy, which currently accounts for 18.4 percent of its total electricity.
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
FATE UNKNOWN: The owner of the dog could face a fine of up to NT$150,000 and the animal could be euthanized if he cannot show that he can effectively supervise it A pit bull terrier has been confiscated by authorities after it yesterday morning bit a motorcyclist in Taipei, following footage of the same dog in a similar attack going viral online earlier this month. When the owner, surnamed Hsu (徐), stopped at a red light on Daan District’s (大安) Wolong Street at 8am, the dog, named “Lucky,” allegedly rolled down the automatic window of the pickup truck they were riding in, leapt out of the rear passenger window and attacked a motorcyclist behind them, Taipei’s Daan District Police Precinct said. The dog clamped down on the man’s leg and only let go
RSS