Members of the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) gathered yesterday to share their journalism experiences in Europe, as well as to meet with their counterparts at the Association of Taiwanese Journalists (ATJ) to exchange information in a forum hosted by the National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Journalism.
The AEJ was established in 1961 by 70 journalists from the six then-member states of the European Economic Community, in the hope that journalism could promote harmony and unity.
Now the AEJ has expanded to include 22 national sections established in different countries throughout Europe. The countries are not necessarily members of the EU, but work together to promote the interests of journalists involved in European affairs as well as preserving the freedom of the press.
With their visit, the six AEJ representatives have also taken the chance to briefly observe the media in Taiwan in the past week.
Tomas Vrba, AEJ representative from the Czech Republic, said that from his observations of the Taiwanese media, he found that most newspapers and TV stations were highly politicized during an election period.
The situation where papers favor one political candidate over another is not seen in Europe, where papers prefer not to be involved in political fights, Vrba said.
"Taiwan is a new democracy," Vrba said. "It is modern and successful, and it is evident that local journalists are free to criticize who they want to."
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
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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