Control Yuan members yesterday urged the Council of Cultural Affairs to designate four ammunition storage depots located near an army base camp in Penghu County’s Siyu (西嶼) as heritage sites, saying that the well-preserved remains could become a popular tourist attraction.
Three of the ammunition storage depots that were established in caves in 1907, named “copper wall, iron bastion” (銅牆鐵壁彈藥庫), were the only sites in the country where smokeless ammunition was kept, Control Yuan member Lee Ping-nan (李炳南) said.
Widely spread rumors that the caves were gas chambers, similar to those used by Nazi Germany, or places where the Japanese army produced biochemical weapons during World War II, prompted Lee and two other Control Yuan members to investigate the history of the caves.
Lee told a press conference that following their investigation, army biotechnology weapons experts ruled out the possibility that the facilities were gas chambers.
Military history experts said the caves were ammunition storage depots that utilized a sophisticated design, which can also be found in Japan, Lee said.
“The storage room inside the cave was a double-layer structure, with copper embedded in the inner layer of the walls and the ceiling to prevent a lightening strike that could have lead to an explosion of the ammunition,” Lee said.
The Penghu County Government has designated the caves as historical sites, but the three Control Yuan members yesterday suggested that, for better preservation, their status should be elevated to the national level.
The depots had been under the management of the Ministry of National Defense. Lee said the ministry has agreed to hand over ownership to the Penghu County Government.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS