David on Formosa

I co-signed the following letter which was published in the Taipei Times today. Is there an unfortunate misunderstanding about German politics and history among some Taiwanese? After two of us had to clarify the path Germany took to abolish the death penalty, (“Real deal behind abolition,” March 17, 2011, page 8), we now have to [...]

Yesterday I attended the first day of the 2011 Hohaiyan Music Festival (海洋音樂祭) at Fulong Beach. The festival, organised by the New Taipei City (formerly Taipei County) Government, has been running since 2000. The festival has two stages with the main stage on Fulong Beach. There are also food stalls and toilets set up on [...]

Bruno Walther sent the following letter to the Taipei Times last week. The Taipei Times published a second letter that he also sent last week. He has given me permission to post the first letter here. Ever since the nuclear catastrophe began in Japan, I was just waiting for somebody to step forward with the argument ‘but [...]

Taiwan’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant under construction in August 2009 with Fulong Beach in the foreground. I had a letter in the Taipei Times today on the subject of nuclear power. It argues that the high cost and long lead times of nuclear power projects defers investment in cleaner and safer forms of electricity generation. [...]

When I got off the train in Fulong (福隆) yesterday afternoon there was a bit of cloud cover and a sea breeze making the temperature a little more bearable than in Taipei. While many people come to Fulong to cool off at the beach I headed to the area in front of the Dongxing Temple [...]

The TITV report* in the video embedded above is about a protest against nuclear waste in Taitung held at Ximending in Taipei on 28 June. The government of Taiwan is seeking to relocate the nuclear waste currently stored on Orchid Island to a new location. A report in the Taipei Times provides a good summary [...]