Leaders of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the Paris-based Reporters without Borders will be invited to visit Taiwan to learn about the country's efforts to defend press freedom after they criticized the Taiwan authorities for revoking the licenses of seven cable TV stations, Government Information Office Minister Pasuya Yao (
According to Yao, the two international organizations, both of which have years of wide-ranging experience of press curtailment all over the globe, have "obviously misunderstood" the withdrawal of licenses and the reasons behind the move. Yao said the groups don't understand the environment in which local TV stations operate, which is different from that of the US.
Instead of trying to bring the TV stations to heel, Yao said, the government is simply pushing them to live up to their responsibility to the public.
He made the statement after the Committee to Protect Journalists joined Reporters Without Borders in condemning the Taiwanese government's suspension of licenses to the news stations ETTV-S and six other entertainment-based cable stations, and its placing of all other cable news stations under a three-month probationary period.
The committee said in a news release Thursday that it is deeply concerned by the Taiwan government's censorship of ETTV-S and its chilling effect on other news stations.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
RSS