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
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS