The legal representative of the Taipei-based Apple Online, the sister Web site of Hong Kong’s now defunct Apple Daily newspaper, on Thursday dismissed reports that the handover of the news site announced on Wednesday last week was unauthorized.
“There is no such thing as the unauthorized disposal” of Apple Online, said Ip Yut-kin (葉一堅), who is the legal representative of the Taiwan branch of Apple Daily Publication Development, a subsidiary of Hong Kong media group Next Digital, which owns Apple Online.
Ip made the statement in a letter to Apple Online employees after Next Digital, which is in liquidation proceedings, on Tuesday denied media reports that it had sold Apple Online.
In an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company’s liquidators rejected “certain media reports” stating that it had disposed of its business in Taiwan for more than NT$300 million (US$10.1 million).
The company’s liquidators said they would “take necessary action” if any unauthorized disposal of its business has occurred.
In the letter, Ip also addressed a planned mass layoff at Apple Online.
Ip said that the company was laying off employees in August because its remaining funds are expected to be used up before September, following the disruption of capital inflows after the assets of Apple Daily were frozen as part of a national security investigation in Hong Kong last year.
Most of the company’s employees would be transferred to the new owners, Ip said.
He also said the company would hold a labor-management consultation meeting to protect the rights and interests of all employees.
On Tuesday, the Taipei Department of Labor said that Apple Online had submitted plans to lay off 280 employees in August.
Employers are required to disclose large numbers of layoffs 60 days in advance.
In May last year, Next Digital stopped publishing the print edition of the Apple Daily in Taiwan, citing declining readership and advertising revenue, but it has continued to operate the online news site.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching