The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to remove Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) from office over comments on the Japanese government’s plan to release processed wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant into the ocean.
The discharge is to begin in two years, Tokyo said on Tuesday last week.
“From my personal standpoint, protesting Japan’s release of wastewater from the nuclear power plant is a very simple and natural thing,” Hsieh wrote on Facebook on the day after the
announcement. “However, from the standpoint of representing Taiwan, I have to consider that the wastewater from Taiwan’s three nuclear power plants is also discharged into the sea.”
At a news conference in Taipei yesterday, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) said that the water discharge from Taiwan’s plants and that from the wrecked plant in Japan is different, citing Atomic Energy Council Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星).
Wang also cited Taiwan Power Co as saying on Tuesday that the radioactive contamination of the water from the Fukushima plant was much higher.
In Taiwan, the release of water is part of normal operations, while in Japan, it is in reaction to an incident, she said.
Frank Hsieh’s statement was to “drag Taiwan down,” Wang said, adding that Tsai should replace him.
Frank Hsieh’s salary is paid by Taiwanese taxpayers, but he is defending Tokyo’s decision, KMT Institute of Revolutionary Practice director Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said, calling the envoy’s statement “nonsense.”
Tsai should summon Frank Hsieh for questioning by lawmakers, he said, adding that the National Police Agency (NPA) should investigate him for allegedly spreading false information.
Frank Hsieh should take political responsibility for his comments, Lo said.
The KMT on Wednesday filed a complaint over the envoy’s statement with the NPA, committee deputy director-general Huang Tzu-che (黃子哲) said.
Under Article 63 of the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), people can be detained for less than three days or fined less than NT$30,000 for “spreading rumors in a way that is sufficient to undermine public order and peace,” Huang said.
Frank Hsieh should apologize, remove his Facebook post and step down from his role, Huang said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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