The Presidential Office accepted an apology as well as corrections made by Weekly Magazine over a misleading report which claimed that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had played a role in the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) preparations for next year's presidential election, an official said yesterday.
high expectations
David Lee (李南陽), director of the Presidential Office's department of public affairs, said the office had expectations that the news media would fulfill its responsibility and obligations as the Fourth Estate and contribute to the deepening of the country's democracy.
Lee urged the media to avoid making irresponsible or untrue reports which risk causing civic unrest.
On Friday, the Presidential Office threatened to sue the weekly for libel unless it made a correction within 24 hours to a story appearing in its latest issue, in which Chen was said to have met DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
rumors
The weekly claimed that during the meeting, Chen and Hsieh had reached an agreement which stipulated that if Hsieh were indicted for any irregularities, former premier Su Tseng-chang (
A special investigation task force under the Supreme Prosecutors' Office is probing 10 cases of alleged irregularities involving Hsieh while he was mayor of Kaohsiung.
These include suspected corruption in connection with the construction of the Kaohsiung mass rapid transit system as well as a case in which Hsieh was alleged to have used improper methods to solicit political donations.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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