The Associated Press (AP) should apologize and correct a story whose headline suggested President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that China had approved Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting, the deputy foreign minister said.
“The AP story’s headline reads: ‘Taiwan president: China approves island WHO role.’ This is totally untrue, therefore the Presidential Office should ask AP to run a correction and AP should apologize to the government,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrew Hsia (夏立言) told reporters on Friday.
On Wednesday, Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said he received a fax from WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) on Tuesday night inviting Taiwan to attend the annual assembly this month under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
It will be the first time Taiwan has attended a meeting of a UN specialized agency since the Republic of China forfeited its UN membership in 1971.
Ma held a news conference on Wednesday to break the news, saying participation in this year’s WHA was a result of Taiwan’s perseverance, China’s goodwill and support from the international community.
Ma lauded improvements in cross-strait ties and the building of mutual trust.
Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) yesterday said AP should improve the quality of its reporting.
He said the original AP report had been cited by local media and that resulting damage to the government “was not minor.”
“To be honest, we were very troubled by the report … We think that such a professional news outlet should demand its news coverage achieve a certain quality,” Su said.
AP has not responded to the government’s demand. On Friday, Peter Enav, the report’s author and head of AP’s Taiwan bureau, declined to comment when contacted by the Taipei Times.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday reiterated that Taiwan’s accession to the WHA as an observer was the result of direct consultation with the WHO and not via Beijing.
But the Central News Agency (CNA) on Thursday quoted WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham as saying that the WHO had no involvement whatsoever in negotiations and that the director-general issued the invitation to Taiwan only after she was notified of the outcome of cross-strait negotiations.
“The ministry is still assessing the CNA report. But I can boldly say the arrangement was not made under Beijing’s dictate and that the diligent efforts of many supporters of Taiwan in the international community have been a crucial factor,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu and Shih Hsiu-chuan
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
‘REALLY PROUD’: Nvidia would not be possible without Taiwan, Huang said, adding that TSMC would be increasing its capacity by 100 percent Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday praised and lightly cajoled his major Taiwanese suppliers to produce more to help power strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI), capping a visit to the country of his birth, where he has been mobbed by adoring fans at every step. Speaking at an impromptu press conference in the rain outside a Taipei restaurant, where he had hosted suppliers for a “trillion-dollar dinner,” named after the market capitalization of those firms attending, Huang said this would be another good year for business. “TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot
RSS