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Anti-nuclear protests in Taiwan draw tens of thousands

DW | March 8, 2014

Tens of thousands have marched in anti-nuclear protests across Taiwan, calling on the government to phase out nuclear energy. The protest comes ahead of the third anniversary of the Fukishima disaster.

Anti-nuclear protesters in Taiwan held four rallies across the country on Saturday, urging the government both to stop construction of a new nuclear power plant and to abandon nuclear power altogether.

Organizers said some 50,000 people attended the protest march and rally in the capital, Taipei, while three other events held simultaneously in other parts of the country drew a combined total of some 30,000.

The Taipei protest was attended by members both of opposition parties and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT).

Concern about the risks posed by Taiwan’s atomic power plants has been growing since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami unleashed a nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant on March 11, 2011.

Taiwan is also regularly hit by earthquakes, raising fears that its currently three nuclear facilities may be similarly vulnerable.

Protesters called on the government to cease construction work on a fourth plant that is being built in a coastal town near Taipei. The plant was originally scheduled to be completed by 2004, but the project has been delayed by political wrangling.

Several polls conducted last year showed that about 70 percent of Taiwanese oppose the building of the plant, which is situated near undersea volcanoes.

The existing plants furnish about 20 percent of the country’s energy needs.

(dpa, AFP)

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1 Comment »

  1. if tens of thousands spent even 15 minutes peacefully walking in front of the main library or courthouse in 5 or 10 major cities in the USA and Canada, nuclear power would be on the ropes and begging to be directed and funded to undertake the clean-up of their mess for the next 50 years. In this age of PR confabulated media, the scale and integrity of a protest must be undeniably huge enough that its absence from the mainstream media thoroughly threatens the remaining public credibility of the mainstream media. Occupy did this for a while, anti-war did this for a while but if we want our countries back from the psychopaths and their henchflak then we have to present masses of peaceful ordinary people as thoroughly opposed to any continuing tolerance for nuclear power. It is either that easy or it is that difficult. There is no amount of avaaz, facebook or twitter click-tivism which will be effective in causing the media to inform, review and revise apparent public support for corporate nuclear power. The only way to force political review and revision of massive public subsidy and deep support for nuclear power is to defy the outrageous absence of the issue in the mainstream media. Until what remains of the working and middle class gets organized, very public and peaceful but noisy about nuclear power, we will all be accounted henceforward as supporting nuclear power and its billions of tiny deadly missiles which the lives of everything which survives us is heir to. It is now or never and if we are survived then our survivors no matter what awful else we are responsible for will be indebted to us for finally saying No to nuclear power. Michael\\

    Comment by Michael | March 10, 2014 | Reply


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