The National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday that it does not need to retract its ruling on the Want Want China Times Group’s purchase of cable television systems owned by China Network Systems (CNS), adding that any dispute between the two parties can be resolved through the legal system.
The commission ruled on July 31, 2012, that the group must fulfill each of the three major conditions as well as 25 complementary clauses before it would be allowed to buy CNS. These included that the group’s chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) and his family had to dissociate themselves completely from the management of CtiTV, that China Television’s (CTV) digital news channel had to be changed into a non-news channel and that CTV had to have an independent content review board.
However, Want Want Group has yet to fulfill any one of the stated provisions.
MBK Partners, the major shareholder in CNS, in October and November last year filed for withdrawal of its applications to both the Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the NCC to transfer the company’s shares to the Want Want Group.
NCC spokesperson Yu Hsiao-cheng (虞孝成) said the deal was conducted between two foreign investors, which should be regulated by the Statute for Investment by Foreign Nationals (外國人投資條例).
“That statute is enforced by the Investment Commission,” Yu said. “The communications commission is the administrative authority regulating cable service operators. We reviewed the Want Want-CNS deal based on the Cable Television and Radio Act (有線廣播電視法), which regulates the qualifications of the buyers.”
Yu said that Want Want is required to follow the commission’s ruling in order to become a qualified buyer.
It does not mean that the transaction between Want Want and CNS was completed, he added.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS