Taiwan could recognize its 15th and 16th indigenous groups — the Hla’alua and the Kanakanvu — a government official in charge of Aboriginal affairs said yesterday.
“My ministry is optimistic that the two groups, currently recognized as part of the Tsou group of Greater Kaohsiung, would be recognized separately very soon once a territory issue is resolved,” Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Mayaw Dongi (林江義) told a Legislative Yuan plenary session.
The issue relates to the groups’ traditional territory overlapping with that of the neighboring Bunun group.
Currently, 14 groups are recognized by the government, including Ami, Atayal, Bunun, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Tao, Thao, Tsou, Truku, Sakizaya and Sediq.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉), a Sediq Aborigine, yesterday questioned the stalled review of the proposal made by the the Hla’alua and the Kanakanvu people.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration appears slow to recognize more indigenous groups, the lawmaker said, adding that five groups — including the Sediq — had been recognized during the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) administration between 2000 and 2008.
The two groups have a good case for proposing distinct for their people because their cultures, languages and traditions have been academically proven as different from the Tsou group, Kung said.
Both groups live in Greater Kaohsiung: the Hla’alua in Taoyuan District (桃源); the Kanakanvu in Namasiya District (那瑪夏).
Lin and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) both said they are supportive of the recognition proposal, but Lin said there are two hurdles.
First, the number of people in both groups is currently less than 1,000, which could increase the difficulty for them to be recognized, he said.
Second, is the territorial issue, which should be negotiated and resolved by related parties before the proposal moves forward, the minister said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS