Several academics and members of the Antinuclear Action Alliance said yesterday that their proposal of initiating a national referendum to decide whether fuel rods should be inserted into the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor has already reached the threshold of 100,000 signatures that are needed for a first-phase submission.
Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎), former Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairperson, said the government and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) decision on “ceasing construction” of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) is only playing with words, stalling for time and deceiving the public.
He said that because the Cabinet and KMT lawmakers are unwilling to amend the Referendum Act (公民投票法), which contains what he called “unreasonably high” thresholds, the alliance has instead initiated a national referendum proposal, with the question: “Do you agree on allowing Taiwan Power Co to insert fuel rods into the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City for a test run?”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“This is a question that is destined to stop nuclear power,” he said, adding that if a national plebiscite is held on this question, any eligible voter who does not vote would be considered against it.
“We have already received enough signatures for the first-phase threshold and we will submit it [to the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee] soon,” he said. “We cannot think of any reason for them to reject our proposal.”
Kao said that the union had previously submitted a petition to initiate a local referendum posing the same question, but it was rejected by the committee, claiming that the nuclear power plant is a nationwide public issue and should be decided on a national level.
Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy secretary-general Chien Wen-nan (錢文南) choked on tears as he said that former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) action of bowing to the tomb of his mother and twin daughters at a cemetery in Yilan on Monday is seen by Taiwanese as a sign of saying that he is about to leave this world.
“This is a critical point concerning a person’s life [Lin is now on the eighth day of his hunger strike], but the government still does not show any empathy,” he said. “He does not represent himself, he is representing the will of many Taiwanese... and he already has family members who have been murdered, please don’t let him sacrifice his life for Taiwanese.”
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A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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