Aboriginal landowners in the area around Taroko Gorge in eastern Taiwan have decided to return on Monday to sow and plow tracts of farmland that they say Asia Cement stole from them some 27 years ago.
About 300 Aboriginal landowners have asked Asia Cement to remove fences, buildings and machines before a Monday deadline from the lands that they claim their ancestors handed down to them, said Tien Chun-chou (
Committee members, including Aboriginal legislators Payen Talu (
According to Tien, the Taiwan Provincial Aboriginal Affairs Committee filed a lawsuit with the Hualien District Court in January 1999 against Asia Cement for illegally occupying the land. The Hualien District Court ruled in favor of the Aborigines on Aug. 10 last year, saying Asia Cement must return the land.
Tien said that company has still not complied with the ruling and has continued operating on the land, adding that no government agency has stepped in to enforce the court ruling.
The landowners notified Asia Cement of their decision to reclaim the land in a joint letter written March 6, in the hopes that the company will do what it should before Monday's deadline.
The decision by the landowners, made up of members of the Taroko, Atayal and Amis tribes, to reclaim the land will mark the largest Aboriginal land reclamation in Taiwan in recent decades, if carried out.
Legislators Payen Talu and Walis Pelin said they are throwing their full support behind the landowners and will help them to claim compensation from Asia Cement for occupation of the land over the past 27 years.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS