Advocacy groups pushing for democracy and media freedom yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to seek a cross-strait agreement on media freedom and called on Beijing to stop censoring news reporting.
The agreement should include protection of the freedom of news gathering, personal safety, news reporting, the Internet, publications, personal actions and no governmental interference in media operations, advocates told a press conference organized by Cross-Strait Agreement Watch (CSAW), Taiwan Democracy Watch (TDW) and the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ).
Safeguarding media freedom has become a salient issue and should be the top priority, because Beijing has repeatedly proposed the establishment of media institutions for Taiwan and China in each other’s territory, TDW convener Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群) said.
“Taiwan’s media freedom should not be a bargaining chip on the cross-strait negotiation table,” Hsu said.
If Beijing keeps its censorship policy in place, cross-strait media exchanges would be meaningless, because various laws in China contained definite regulations on news censorship, Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) of CSAW said.
ATJ president Chen Hsiao-yi (陳曉宜) said Beijing regularly grants access to news gathering to selected Taiwanese media, a strategy to control the media which could prevent the truth from being reported, and that was why media institutions across the Strait should not be established before the right to report news is protected.
The Mainland Affairs Council responded to the call in a press release, saying the council has again called on Beijing to respect and protect freedom of the media.
The government has laid out the priority issues in media-related cross-strait exchanges, including ending China’s blocking of Taiwanese news Web sites and an agreement on the publication of Taiwanese magazines in China, it said.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit
HOSPITAL VISITS: Shin Kong Mitsukoshi pledged to give the families of the four people who died NT$11m each and provide support for staff working at the time The central government would assist local governments to enhance public safety, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday as he visited people in hospital who were injured in an explosion at a department store in Taichung on Thursday. A suspected gas explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang department store in Taichung at 11:33am on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 36. Of the 40 casualties, 39 were hospitalized, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed. Three died after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, the data showed. As of 6am yesterday, 25 of those injured had been discharged from hospital, leaving 11