About 200 Aborigines yesterday held a demonstration on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei to support three campaigners staging a sit-in protest against recently announced guidelines on the delineation of traditional Aboriginal territories.
The demonstrators from the Indigenous Youth Front performed traditional songs and danced for more than an hour before dispersing.
The Council of Indigenous Peoples announced the guidelines on Feb. 14, but they were opposed by Aboriginal rights groups and lawmakers, as they stipulate that private land would not be recognized as traditional Aboriginal territories.
Aboriginal folk singers and rights campaigners Nabu Husungan Istanda and Panai Kusui and documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho started a sit-in protest in front of the Presidential Office Building on Ketagalan Boulevard on Feb. 23.
“The guidelines exclude private lands and will cause traditional territories to become fragmented,” the front said. “The council says that this is a step forward from zero to 800,000 hectares [of traditional Aboriginal territories], but we can foresee various land development cases in villages that no longer need to respect local tribes and unable to hear the land weeping.”
The front said the three campaigners have been staging a sit-in for more than 10 days, so it is time for them, mostly university students, to show their support and show the government that many young people are also concerned about the issue.
They said that the integrity of the traditional territories can help Aboriginal communities learn traditional ecological knowledge and allow them to develop the most suitable culture and lifestyles for living in the area.
A member of the front, Mo’o, who is an undergraduate student at National Taiwan University, said the exclusion of private lands will harm the integrity of traditional Aboriginal territories, and Aborigines will not have the right to express their opinions in land development cases.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book