Thousands rally in Taiwan against nuclear plant

Thousands of protesters staged a sit-in near the presidential palace in Taiwan's capital today to oppose a controversial nuclear power plant and show support for a high-profile activist on hunger strike.
The protesters braved pouring rain in Taipei to wave banners and placards reading "No nukes, no fear" and "Abolish nuclear power," amid tight security.
Police sealed off some streets in the area with barbed-wire barricades as organisers vowed to stage more protests if their demands were not met.
The plant outside Taipei has been one of the most contentious projects in Taiwan. Intense political wrangling has repeatedly delayed its construction, which began in 1999 and has already cost around USD 10 billion.

Lin Yi-hsiung, a respected 72-year-old former opposition leader who has devoted himself to the anti-nuclear cause in the past two decades, began an indefinite hunger strike on Tuesday to urge the government scrap the nearly completed facility.
Lin has said that he was forced into taking the drastic move because the authorities ignored majority public opinion against the power station.

"The matter is urgent as Mr Lin has been on hunger strike for five days," said protest organiser Liu Hui-min.
"We demand the government to stop building the plant immediately or we will continue the sit-in indefinitely."
Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday promised to let the public decide the fate of the facility in a referendum, but gave no timetable for the vote.

Concerns about Taiwan's nuclear facilities have been mounting since 2011, when the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan was hit by a tsunami which knocked out power to its cooling systems and sent reactors into meltdown.
Like Japan, Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes. In September 1999 a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in recent history.