A march against climate change took place today, as organized by the Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition, to commemorate the global climate strike that took place across the world on September 25th. The march was attended by several hundred, despite drizzling rain throughout the day...
In the past month, the Nantou city government has filed a lawsuit against the state-owned Taipower Corporation. This is on the grounds that air pollution from the coal-burning Taichung Power Plant is causing the high death rate from lung cancer in Nantou county. Interestingly, the Taichung city government has backed Nantou county’s lawsuit against the Taipower Corporation...
With nuclear energy once again looming as an issue over elections next year, ten thousand demonstrated against nuclear energy in Taipei today. The demonstration saw visits by current president Tsai Ing-wen and former premier William Lai, who are both contending for the DPP's presidential nomination in 2020 elections...
Pro-nuclear groups in Taiwan continue to push for nuclear energy, as observed in three recent referendum pushes on nuclear energy-related issues. These referendums are organized by the groups responsible for the referendum on nuclear energy held in November during nine-in-one elections...
After the referendum on nuclear energy held concurrently with nine-in-one elections on November 24th, shifts in Taiwan’s treatment of nuclear energy-related issues are likely to take place. The referendum called for the overturning of current provisions in the law which stipulate that Taiwan is to be nuclear-free by 2025...
There would seem to be no greater indicator of progressive civil society’s defeats in 2018 local elections more than its losses across the board in terms of the referendums it pushed for. However, the situation seems to set to get bleaker in the near future. Conservative groups have now realized that referendums may be one way for them to force their political agendas through...
The results of referendum voting will no doubt come as a great shock to progressive Taiwanese civil society with, quite literally, all of the referendum proposals they championed being voted down. On the other hand, all of the referendums they opposed passed. However, not all of these achieved the necessary 25% of voter participation needed to be legally binding...
Referendum reform has historically been pushed for by progressive civil society groups in Taiwan, as a means to resolve longstanding issues blocked by the KMT and other conservative forces. Progressive civil society groups were finally victorious in amending the Referendum Act last year, lowering the benchmarks needed to hold a referendum in Taiwan. But what if the results of referendum voting tomorrow indicate that, ironically enough, conservatives have managed to hijack the referendum and to use it against progressive civil society?...
A wave of demonstrations took place in the lead-up to 2018 local elections. From these demonstrations, we can see what the major issues of 2018 elections are...
The third televised debate on nuclear energy took place on November 12th, with Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修), the initiator of the referendum on whether Taiwan should remove legal provisions for Taiwan to be nuclear-free by 2025, faced off against Hung Shen-han of the Green Citizen Action Alliance. The debate quite directly reveals how the KMT has been a major force in pushing for the referendum...
