The Taipei City Government promised to take ads for an online game featuring a girl with large breasts off city buses yesterday after a growing number of complaints that the ads were objectifying women.
The National Communications Commission (NCC) said recently that the content of several ads for online games may have violated the Satellite Radio and Television Act (衛星廣播電視法) and banned one of the ads, featuring a girl named Shushu (舒舒) operating a jackhammer with close-ups of her breasts, from being shown on TV.
The print version of the ad, however, has been placed on the side of 26 buses in Taipei, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤) told a press conference yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
Chien Shu-pei (簡舒培), a member of the Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women's Rights, said such ads exploited the bodies of young girls and had a negative impact on children and women. She urged the city government to take action against the ads.
In response, Taipei City's Public Transportation Office deputy Director Liang Heng-de (梁恆德) acknowledged that the city government had been negligent and said his office would negotiate with the bus companies to have the ads removed immediately.
Wu criticized the city government for relaxing regulations on reviewing ads on public transport vehicles and infrastructure, including in MRT stations and on buses, and urged the city government to conduct a city-wide inspection of ads.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) later promised to be more cautious on sexually suggestive ads during a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling