A team of Taiwanese experts are to travel to Japan to examine Tokyo’s plans to release contaminated water from the disabled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant into the ocean, the Atomic Energy Council said on Monday.
The team would likely make the trip by the end of this year, council Minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) said, adding that Tokyo has agreed to the trip in principle.
The team is similar to an investigative task force led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would also investigate Japan’s plans, Hsieh told reporters after briefing lawmakers on the matter at the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: EPA
IAEA officials have the authority to enter the power plant’s premises to inspect the work being conducted there, and the Taiwanese team would carry out an on-site inspection covering the same items on the IAEA’s itinerary, including water release information and monitoring measures, Hsieh said.
Some IAEA representatives have already visited Japan and the agency plans to send its investigative team by the end of the year, he added.
The council has been coordinating with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Taiwan’s representative office in Japan to negotiate the planned visit with Japanese officials, he said.
Japan has announced that it would release more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the crippled power plant into the sea, beginning in about two years.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates the plant, would treat and dilute the contaminated water before discharging it, Japan said.
The filtering process would remove most radioactive elements from the water, leaving only tritium, news media have reported.
The IAEA has come up with a timetable for procedures and measures regarding the release of the water, and the council would map out its plan in line with the IAEA’s timetable, despite Taiwan not being included in the UN agency’s investigative task force, Hsieh said.
Taiwan has banned food imports from five Japanese prefectures — Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba — since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011.
Since the disaster, it has also subjected nine categories of Japanese food products from other parts of Japan to batch-by-batch border inspections for radioactive residue.
About 175,000 items have since been tested, government data showed.
Asked by a lawmaker whether Taiwan has enough capacity to increase tests for radioactive residue if it resumes food product imports from the five prefectures, Hsieh said that the nation’s testing capacity outstrips annual demand by about three times.
Preparations for resuming imports have been made over the past few years, he said.
The government is considering lifting the ban following its application to join the Japan-led Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the world’s biggest trade blocs.
The bloc represents a market of 500 million people and accounts for 13.5 percent of global trade.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon this morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan between Friday and Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The storm, which as of 8am was still 1,100km southeast of southern Taiwan, is currently expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, the CWA said. Because of its rapid speed — 28kph as of 8am — a sea warning for the storm could be issued tonight, rather than tomorrow, as previously forecast, the CWA said. In terms of its impact, Usagi is to bring scattered or
An orange gas cloud that leaked from a waste management plant yesterday morning in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) was likely caused by acidic waste, authorities said, adding that it posed no immediate harm. The leak occurred at a plant in the district’s Environmental Science and Technology Park at about 7am, the Taoyuan Fire Department said. Firefighters discovered a cloud of unidentified orange gas leaking from a waste tank when they arrived on the site, it said, adding that they put on Level A chemical protection before entering the building. After finding there was no continuous leak, the department worked with the city’s Department
MESSAGE: The ministry said China and the Philippines are escalating regional tensions, and Taiwan should be included in dialogue mechanisms on an equal footing Taiwan has rejected renewed sovereignty claims over the South China Sea by the Philippines and China by reaffirming its sovereignty and rights under international law over the disputed area. “The Republic of China [ROC] enjoys all rights to island groups and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea in accordance with international law and maritime laws,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement yesterday. Other countries’ attempts to claim sovereignty over the South China Sea do not change the fact that the ROC holds sovereignty over the region, the ministry said. The MOFA statement came after
RSS