A senior Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official recently caused a stir with an entry he posted on his Facebook page on Saturday criticizing China’s news censorship.
“So much for talks about exchanges in journalism when [China] only allows the ‘yes men’ to be stationed in Taiwan, and if you are the disobedient kind, it won’t allow it,” Shih Wei-Chuan (施威全), a senior secretary at the MAC, wrote on his Facebook page, referring to China’s repeated proposal to sign a cross-strait cultural -exchange agreement with Taiwan to promote exchanges in journalism and allowing journalists to be stationed on the other side.
“What kind of exchange is it when it is a controlled exchange? Exchanges should not be defined by the ones in power,” he wrote, adding that the focus of cross-strait exchanges in journalism should be news information and content, instead of the number of journalists being stationed or the length of stay.
The entry was deleted on Sunday after the press questioned Shih about it.
Saying the views expressed on the post were purely personal, Shih said he had set the privacy level for that post as private, as he intended it to be read only by his close friends.
Commenting on the incident, Liao Yi-ming (廖義銘), an associated professor in the Department of Government and Laws at the National University of Kaohsiung, said it might be best for public servants to avoid penning their personal thoughts on the Web because it is hard to control who could see the post. It is also easier to blur the line between what is private and what is official when it comes to posting comments online, he added.
According to sources, the Government Information Office (GIO) recently sent an official to visit Beijing and Shanghai. The purpose of the trip was to understand Taiwanese journalists’ working situation, as well as to exchange opinions with leading Chinese media. The sources added that Beijing has previously requested permission to establish a Taipei branch of its Xinhua news agency. However, the GIO has so far not granted such a request, according to the sources.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai