Before meeting with Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) in Taipei yesterday afternoon, members of local civic groups living near nuclear waste storage sites said that they are dissatisfied with the government’s unilateral decisionmaking process and urged it to have real negotiations with the public.
The groups — from New Taipei City (新北市), Lanyu (蘭嶼, also known as Orchid Island), and Taitung and Pintung counties — said in front of the Executive Yuan that during their first meeting with Jiang on April 3, he promised to establish a negotiation forum comprised of government and civic representatives to discuss policies for final disposal of radioactive spent fuel.
However, Taitung Anti-Nuclear Alliance Secretary-General Su Ya-ting (蘇雅婷) said there were no communications regarding the forum for several months afterward, and when the alliance finally received a notice for yesterday’s meeting, its agenda had already been set.
“We feel as if the government has already decided the policies and we are only being asked to come and endorse their plans,” Su said, while showing a copy of the meeting agenda.
“Moreover, while Minister Without Portfolio Steven Chen (陳士魁) was assigned as the forum’s convener, he has been transferred to another position, leaving us even more concerned about whether the forum can really function,” she added.
Sinan Mavivo, secretary-general of the Tao Foundation, said people living in Lanyu are very concerned about the low-level nuclear waste which has been stored on the island since 1981, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs has kept delaying its removal and refused to reconvene its steering committee for the Lanyu storage site’s relocation.
“We ask the government, Taiwan Power Co and the ministry to remove the nuclear waste immediately,” she said. “We don’t need them to talk about formulating a new schedule for relocation and related inspections; we just ask them to remove it now.”
Green Party Taiwan member Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) said the government has failed to finalize locations for building permanent nuclear waste repositories for the past seven years, but has kept using the matter as an excuse to postpone the promised removal of nuclear waste from Lanyu.
The party urged the government to decouple the two issues and deal with the Lanyu storage facility’s relocation immediately.
Northern Coast Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance chairperson Hsu Fu-hsiung (許富雄) said a dry cask storage facility for highly radioactive spent fuel waste from the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門), New Taipei City (新北市), is due to go into testing next month, but the alliance fears that salt corrosion may cause radioactive leaks because the storage site is near the ocean.
Although Taipower has claimed the site is only for temporary storage, local residents are concerned that once spent fuel rods are placed in storage, there may be no likelihood of Taipower moving them to a final disposal site, Hsu said. He added that residents should be allowed to decide whether they want the facility in the area via a referendum.
“It is a fact that disposal of nuclear waste is an intractable problem in Taiwan, so we want to tell the government that while the problem remains unresolved, it shouldn’t allow nuclear power plants to operate, as they are adding to disposal problems,” Wang said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS