The legislature finally made available on Friday its video-on-demand (VOD) system, which allows proceedings in all chambers to be broadcast live online and be accessible to the public.
The system allows people to watch legislative meetings live online or to access videoclips permanently stored in the system on-demand.
However, it soon came under fire: The system is designed to avoid broadcasting scenes whenever meetings degenerate into a melee.
FULL PICTURE
Some fear, however, that selective broadcasts could limit people’s understanding of what is going on.
For example, when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers criticized Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) on the legislative floor on Friday and demanded that he apologize for the economic situation, the VOD system showed a wall of the chamber and the sound was muted.
The VOD system was previously only available at the legislative building and legislators’ constituency offices across the country. Back then, no footage were cut.
DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said the new broadcasting system denied people their right to know what is going on at the legislature.
The director of the legislature’s Information Technology Department, Chen Shi-yang (陳熙揚), defended the practice, saying it was conducted in accordance with a consensus reached with the DPP caucus that controversial scenes be censored out of concern for the image of the legislature.
COMPROMISE
Legislative watchdog Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said the consensus was a compromise to get some lawmakers to agree to make the broadcasts available to the public.
Ho said his organization had received many complaints about the censorship on Friday, adding that the CCW hoped pressure from the public would help change the broadcasting rules.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the rules were established by a taskforce composed of four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and three DPP lawmakers and that similar rules had been adopted by other countries.
Whether the rules should be revised was open to debate, Wang said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by