More politicians yesterday entered the fray over the Golden Horse film festival as opposition lawmakers blasted the government for threatening to end funding for the festival for political reasons.
But legislators from the ruling camp defended the move, saying the festival has long been accused of unfair play.
The controversy surfaced Thursday when the Chinese-language media revealed that organizers of the film festival turned down advice to invite President Chen Shui-bian (
Arthur Iap (葉國興), director-general of the Government Information Office (GIO), told reporters later the same day his agency considered halting financial aid to the event in line with the call to "separate politics from arts."
PFP legislative leader Shen Chih-hwei (
"As a regulator of the film industry, the GIO should try its best to encourage filmmakers rather than giving them a hard time," Shen said. "Having the president or other officials address the ceremony does nothing to realize that end."
Fellow PFP Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) also criticized the government, saying the country's film industry has long been in recession.
"Political influence of any kind is improper and undesirable if the film industry is to survive," she said. "By seeking to withhold financial aid, the GIO apparently aims to punish the organizers for failing to heed its order."
This year's film festival will culminate in a glamorous awards ceremony tonight in Kaohsiung City.
DPP Legislator Lee Ming-hsien (
He pointed out that KMT Legislator Wu Den-yih (
Lee supports calls to deny the festival funding, noting that, over the years, film critics have questions the fairness of the event's rules.
"It seems odd that an increasing number of award-winners are from China and Hong Kong," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching