The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said the commission would review all the articles in the Organic Act of the National Communications Commission (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) and proposed a comprehensive amendment of the articles.
NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the commissioners were scheduled to discuss an amendment to Article 4 of the act, which states that the NCC commissioners should vote to choose the NCC chairperson and vice chairperson.
As the Basic Act Governing Central Administrative Agencies Organizations (中央行政機關組織基準法) states that chiefs of the independent government agencies should be appointed by the premier, the Organic Act of the NCC would then contradict the Basic Act Governing Central Administrative Agencies Organizations.
An amendment was thus proposed, Chen said.
“However, the commissioners feel that the Organic Act itself needs a comprehensive revision, not just Article 4,” Chen said.
Chen said the Organic Act has created several problems in the past four years.
For example, he said the three-year revolving-door policy has prevented many experienced professionals from becoming NCC commissioners.
Many qualified NCC staff are not allowed to be NCC commissioners either.
The three new NCC commissioners are scheduled to take up their positions on Aug. 1.
They will also choose the new chair. NCC Chairperson Bonnie Peng (彭芸) is scheduled to leave her post on July 31.
In related news, the commissioners also approved the rules governing taking a channel off the air. The new rules said that a radio station would be banned from broadcasting if the accumulated penalties top NT$3 million (US$93,000) within a period of two years.
A similar rule would apply to both terrestrial and satellite TV channels if the accumulated penalties within two years reach NT$6 million and NT$10 million, respectively.
“Regardless of how many violations they have committed so far, they will start with a clean slate when the rules are promulgated,” said Jason Ho (何吉森), director of the NCC’s Communication Content Department.
If a case is believed to constitute a serious violation by its commissioners, the NCC is obliged to hold a testimony before issuing any ruling, Ho said.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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