The Independence Evening Post, the country's oldest evening newspaper, will walk into history and is expected to issue its last copy tomorrow, the paper's editorial department announced yesterday.
The paper is ceasing publication because it is running out of printing paper and the newspaper's delivery people are on strike after failing to get paid for months, an employee said.
On July 26, a new team was introduced to take over the cash-strapped newspaper from former chairman Wang Shih-chien (王世堅). But the changing of the guard has failed to save the paper from closing down.
When taking charge, the new team claimed to have amassed NT$150 million to run the paper. But according to a manager at the paper, who declined to be named, the financial situation under the new regime never appeared favorable because some financial supporters decided to bail out after discovering the paper's deplorable financial condition.
Labor problems intensified two weeks ago when the paper's union filed a lawsuit against Wang and Chang Fu-tai (張福泰), the paper's new chairman, for embezzling NT$8 million in workers' insurance fees and failing to issue paychecks in July and August.
Unwilling to assume responsibility, Chang claimed that his chairmanship was invalid because the process of electing him was flawed. He has stayed out of the business ever since.
The manager told the Taipei Times that Chang had invested more than NT$10 million in August, but he refused to contribute more because of a lack of other financial backers.
Since the dispute broke out in mid-September, most of the paper's managers have left and the workers' union has been taking charge of the paper's operation. Originally published with 20 pages, the paper has been cut down to eight and most of its content is aimed at attacking management for, in the union's words, their "irresponsibility." The circulation has shrunk from 45,000 copies to 2,000.
There are 240 employees at the Post, who cost the paper NT$18 million per month.
The manager said that the paper is running out of money and printing paper. It costs NT$500,000 every three days to keep the paper running.
On Saturday, a board meeting to discuss the paper's future and the employees' working rights was aborted because of the union's protest.
Founded in 1947, the Post was the first paper in the country to advocate "independence from political parties" during a time when Taiwan was under martial law.
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said yesterday after US President Donald Trump criticized the nation’s chip dominance. Trump repeated claims on Thursday that Taiwan had taken the industry and he wanted it back in the US, saying he aimed to restore US chip manufacturing. National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) did not name Trump in a Facebook post, but referred to President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments on Friday that Taiwan would be a reliable partner in the
RSS