The Zero-Nuke Festival hosted by the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance started in Taipei yesterday with works by the Taiwan-Japan Joint No Nuke Illustration Exposition and the Hibakusha Film Exposition.
The Hibakusha Exposition Association, with the Japanese word hibakusha meaning “victims overtly exposed to radiation,” is an event started by Japanese filmmaker Ittetsu Morishita and five other filmmakers equally concerned about victims of nuclear materials.
The six filmmakers have gone to the sites of nuclear disasters and filmed the results of nuclear usage, and their travels have taken them across South Korea, Japan, Belarus, Tahiti, the US, Australia and other nations.
In the Contaminated Slipper piece exhibited yesterday, the group chose to show nuclear contamination by exposing the minute traces of contamination on a slipper found in the alert zone near the beach on Fukushima by photographer Takashi Morizumi.
The photograph caption said: “It’s not hard to imagine how terrible it would be if the radiation made its way into the human body and started destroying cellular DNA.”
Another picture after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011, showed a village in the danger zone devoid of people with only a few dogs wandering around. A Tokyo Electric Power Company banner reads: “Nuclear power, the wonderful energy source of the future.”
The Taiwan-Japan joint anti-nuclear illustration exposition displays 220 illustrations, including some by Jimmy (幾米) and 19 other renowned illustrators who have also put their work up for sale.
The alliance is to hold an outdoor concert, as well as a series of film expositions and seminars today and tomorrow and is to invite director Ko I-chen (柯一正) and writers Hsiao Yeh (小野), Hao Kuang-tsai (郝廣才) and Giddens Ko (九把刀) to participate in the events.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant