The People First Party (PFP) legislative caucus yesterday threatened to freeze the annual budget of the Government Information Office (GIO) during the upcoming legislative session if the ruling party continues to boycott the establishment of a national communications commission (NCC).
"The Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] administration must bear all the political responsibility if the NCC cannot get off the ground during the upcoming legislative session," said PFP caucus whip Sun Ta-chien (
As the matter tops his caucus' agenda for the approaching session, Sun said that his caucus will ask Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
If all fails, Sun said that his caucus will join forces with its political ally, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), to freeze items in the GIO's budget that overlap those of the proposed NCC.
Sun also asked the GIO to make public background information on the 12 members of its review committee, which denied the license renewal applications of seven TV channels.
They should also explain why the committee members were chosen and the reasons behind the denial of the TV channels' applications.
"If the review process is as fair as they claim, they shouldn't be afraid of releasing that information," Sun said.
Late Sunday night the GIO's review committee said seven channels had failed their evaluations and would be barred from broadcasting when their licenses expired at midnight on Tuesday.
Others channels that passed their reviews could also lose their licenses in three months if they fail to carry out a self-discipline agreement that the TV stations themselves had devised.
In response to the PFP's threat, DPP caucus whip Chen Chin-jun (
Chen also criticized opposition parties' proposal that the NCC's members be decided according to the number of legislative seats each party has.
Chen said that this would not help solve current problems and that the committee would end up being a battlefield for political power struggles.
Echoing Chen's opinion, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus whip Mark Ho (
"It is political feuding if opposition parties use the GIO's annual budget to counter its denial of several TV channel's license renewal applications," he said. "We support the establishment of the NCC, but its members must be independent media experts and academics."
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS