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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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March 9, 2014 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Canadian natives and anti-nuclear activists halt train

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Protesters blocking a train near a nuclear processing facility in Toronto, Canada on February 3, 2013.
Press TV – February 6, 2013

Canadian natives and anti-nuclear activists have blocked a rail line, demanding the shutdown of a nuclear processing facility in the country.

The protesters, including the members of the Idle No More movement, blocked a train, on Sunday, near the General Electric-Hitachi nuclear plant in Toronto, after staging a demonstration at the facility and a march earlier.

“Uranium is stolen from indigenous lands and it leaks radiation all along the fuel chain,” said anti-nuclear activist Zach Ruiter.

Another protester from Serpent River First Nation said, “I’m here because uranium, it really affected my reserve back home,” and added, “It did a lot of damage to our river. We can’t use the river no more, we can’t fish in it. We can’t drink the water.”

Under a Canadian law, the government has the right to seize or sell land from the indigenous people to the private sector.

The aboriginal people say the government is using the law to force them flee their land.

Legal experts have called the law unconstitutional and a potentially genocidal piece of legislation that is intended to do away with the collective rights of Canada’s 1.2 million natives.

The Idle No More Movement was inspired by the six-week hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, which began on December 11, 2012, as a protest against the violation of the rights of Canadian natives.

February 6, 2013 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Nuclear Power, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment