Protests over construction of telescope in Hawaii

MaUNA KEA, July 16 (AP): Singing, chanting and lying on the ground in the road, hundreds of people demonstrated on Monday against the construction of a giant telescope on a mountaintop that some Native Hawaiians consider sacred.

The protests were the latest salvo in a yearslong fight that pits scientific discovery against cultural preservation.

Scientists hope the massive telescope planned for the site, a world-renowned location for astronomy, will help them peer back to the time just after the Big Bang and answer fundamental questions about the universe.

But some Native Hawaiians consider the land holy, as a realm of gods and a place of worship.

At about daybreak Monday, a group of kupuna, or elders, sitting in chairs, tied themselves together with rope and blocked the road to the summit of Mauna Kea.

Another group of protesters spent the day lying prone on the ground, with their arms shackled under a grate in the road.

The road was officially closed hours after it was essentially blocked by protesters.