Taipei City Government yesterday accused the Government Infor-mation Office (GIO) of sweeping its problems under the carpet after it flip-flopped on a decision to ban a satirical VCD.
"The GIO's explanation is specially designed for the Special Report VCDs," said city government spokesman Wu Yu-sheng (
The city's Law and Regulation Commission Director Chen Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) said that, according to the Broadcasting and Television Law (
Chen said that three legal steps needed to be completed before a VCD could be issued -- the publishers must register and obtain a circulation license from the GIO, the contents must be reviewed and passed by the GIO and the VCDs' packaging has to be marked with the licensed serial numbers and the name of the publisher.
"We still have no idea about who the publisher is, there is no information on the VCDs' packaging," Chen said. "The GIO's explanation only exempts the VCD from being reviewed before it is released."
Chen said the city government still considered the VCD illegal and it would consult with the GIO about whether to ban it.
The GIO announced on Monday that two additional kinds of taped TV programs that don't need to be sent to it for review before airing will be added to 13 already regulated by law.
"If some people say they wish to discuss global pornography and produce a VCD with pornographic images, how will the government handle that situation?" Wu asked.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
NO RIGHT: After 38 years of martial law under the former KMT government, the KMT is the least qualified to accuse others of harboring such intentions, DPP officials said The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of creating a stir on social media by implying that the government supports martial law, adding that the KMT is the least qualified to criticize others after decades of martial law in Taiwan under the former KMT regime. After South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol late on Tuesday night declared martial law (which was rescinded six hours later), the DPP caucus issued a statement on Thread saying that Taiwan’s legislature was facing a situation similar to that in South Korea, which had prompted Yoon to declare martial law. “The South
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
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