The Ketagalan of Taiwan Indigenous Culture Alliance yesterday accused government officials of overlooking the destruction of valuable artifacts used by Taiwanese Aborigines 4,500 years ago in order to construct access roads to the Lungmen nuclear power plant.
Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), paleontologists and descendants of Aborigines yesterday told a press conference that they found the Ministry of Economic Affairs' (MOEA) refusal to halt construction of the nuclear power plant’s access roads unacceptable.
The Lungmen nuclear power plant, also known as the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, is currently being constructed in Taipei County’s Gungliao Township (貢寮).
Lin Sheng-yi (林勝義), executive director of the alliance, held up a part of what is believed to be a crucible used by ancestors of the Pingpu Tribe (平埔族) that was found at the power plant construction site and said that carbon dating has shown it to be from the year 2440 BC.
“Scholars from the Academia Sinica and the National Science Council all denied its [the artifact's] value,” Lin said.
Lin wasn’t discouraged and sent a sample to the Beta Analytic Radio Carbon Dating Laboratory in Miami, Florida, which informed him that test results indicated that the sample was from 2440 BC.
“The adhesive used in these artifacts is proof that the articles are manmade, and not naturally occurring,” he said.
Taiwan Paleo-Civilization Research Center's Ho Hsien-jung (何顯榮) also recognized geometric characters that are believed to be early forms of writing found on rocks dug up from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant.
“These artifacts are like tape recordings that our ancestors left us,” Tien said. “Our ancestry comes not only from Emperor Qin Shi Huang, but many other different cultures as well. About a quarter of all Taiwanese have Pingpu blood in their veins.”
Their petitions to halt construction of certain areas near the plant have gone unanswered.
“[Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang 施顏祥] has vowed to halt construction if the location is indeed an archaeological site. We hope he will keep his word,” Tien said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching