Taiwan has won the distinction of being listed as having Asia’s freest media environment for the second consecutive year in the annual Freedom House report.
The US non-governmental organization’s Freedom of the Press 2008 report released on Tuesday in advance of World Press Freedom Day on Saturday lists Taiwan as one of only three Asian countries with “free” media.
“The survey shows that freedom of speech in Taiwan is highly regarded by Freedom House, and that is an honor for all of Taiwan’s people,” Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said yesterday.
In the face of a decline in global press freedom over the past six straight years, Taiwan has continued moving up the Freedom House rankings, Shieh said.
Of the 195 countries and territories included in the rankings, Taiwan was listed 32nd, up one place from last year. This year’s score for Taiwan was its best ever. Taiwan’s ranking was the highest in Asia, ahead of Japan at 35 and South Korea at 67 — the only three Asian countries where the report lists the media as “free.”
Hong Kong was also ranked 67th.
Freedom House rated each country’s legal, political and economic environment, as well as the degree to which each of these factors affected media freedom.
In its draft report, Freedom House attributed Taiwan’s free media environment to its commitment to judicial independence, economic freedom and a highly competitive media market.
“The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. Taiwanese media are vigorous and lively, regularly criticizing government policy and top officials,” the report said.
In the survey, 72 countries, or 37 percent, were rated as “free,” while 59 nations, or 30 percent, were described as “partly free” and 64 countries, or 33 percent, as “not free.”
China continued to be rated as “not free,” with a global ranking of 181, the same as the previous year.
Freedom House said that China last year tightened media control and Internet restrictions in preparation for the 17th Communist Party Congress, and imprisoned more online journalists and bloggers, despite moderate breakthroughs for investigative journalism and regulations providing somewhat greater access to foreign correspondents.
“In general, journalists who attempted to investigate or report on controversial issues, criticized the [Chinese] Communist Party or presented a perspective contrary to state propaganda continued to suffer harassment, job loss, abuse and detention,” the report said.
Global media freedom watchdogs estimate that at least 29 journalists and 51 cyber-dissidents were in prison in China at the end of last year, more than any other country, while at least nine journalists and online writers were detained during the year over information they had published on the Internet, it said.
Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan, which remained among the worst-rated countries on the list, were joined by Eritrea last year, while a crackdown in Myanmar worsened that country’s already repressive media environment, leaving its score second only to that of North Korea, Freedom House said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS