Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers earlier this week proposed the creation of a new law to regulate cultural conservation efforts at the nation’s military villages, saying existing regulations are inadequate.
Military villages, known as juan cun, are residential compounds that were established to house soldiers and their families brought to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) army in 1949.
DPP legislators Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉), Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) and Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) called for legislation to provide clear guidelines on the villages’ designation as cultural heritage sites, relevant property transfers and sources of funding for their maintenance and management.
The nation’s military villages were loci of vibrant multiethnic cultures and shared historical experiences, and should be considered cultural assets unique to Taiwan, Chiu said.
Kaohsiung has been an important region for the nation’s armed forces, hosting a number of bases and residential areas for military personnel, including army communities in Fengshan (鳳山) and navy communities in Zuoying (左營), which are recognized as cultural heritages, he said.
However, the air force’s Lecyun Village (樂群) and Sing Village (醒) in Gangshan (岡山) have not been recognized as military community cultural conservation zones, despite the Kaohsiung City Government designating them as heritage sites, Chiu said.
Conserving military villages should be the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and local governments implementing the ministry’s plans, Liu said, adding that agencies such as the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Finance should be relegated to supporting roles.
Legal safeguards should be implemented to protect military village cultural heritage sites from land speculators, she added.
According to unnamed sources, the cost of turning Lecyun and Sing villages into cultural conservation areas has been estimated at NT$900 million (US$27.9 million).
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS