Taiwan Quick Take: `Taiwan Daily' shuts

After failing to pay its staff for six consecutive months, the financially strapped Taiwan Daily yesterday temporarily suspended operations and publication, according to a CNA report yesterday. If the pro-independence newspaper failed to secure a new buyer to help resolve its financial difficulties by Saturday, it would not rule out ceasing publication permanently, Lo Chiung-hsuan (羅炯烜), the paper's deputy manager, was quoted as saying in the report. In 1996, after being under the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) control for nearly 30 years, the Taiwan Daily went through a radical transformation, as senior liberal journalists Yen Wen-shuan (顏文閂) and Antonio Chiang (江春男) took charge of the paper, with hefty financial backing from the Formosa Plastics Group. In May 2001, chairman of the Formosa Plastics Group Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) cut off financial support to the unprofitable paper.