Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) staged a demonstration outside the Legislative Yuan yesterday, protesting Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) failure to fulfill a promise to allow public access to the legislature’s video-on-demand (VOD) system.
“Wang promised several times during the past legislative session, and again in August, that he would endeavor to allow public access to live broadcasts of legislative meetings through the legislature’s VOD system as soon as this session starts in September,” CCW chairman Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said.
“But obviously, he has failed to fulfill that promise,” Ku said.
Ku said members of the US Congress were able to bridge the political divide and stand together to vote down the US$700 billion proposal made by the US President George W. Bush administration to rescue Wall Street.
This, he said, could be achieved “because members of the US Congress are directly watched by voters and they stand for the public’s interests, not the government’s.”
“To have a better legislature, we must start by making it transparent,” he said.
Although the legislature recently created a media page with selected video clips showing parts of the legislative meetings, it falls short of what CCW has called for.
“What we’re seeking is complete public access to everything that is recorded or broadcast live during legislative meetings, not just limited selection of videos that only show the ‘good side’ of the legislature,” CCW executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said. “This is progress, but it falls short of our expectations.”
Under the selective system, the public can only see video clips that have been carefully selected and uploaded by lawmakers, said Shen Chuen-hua (沈春華), an office aide to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲).
Kuan is among the 90 lawmakers who signed an agreement to promote legislative transparency and pushed for uploading live broadcasts of legislative meetings on a Web site.
“We’re disappointed and call on Wang to fulfill his promise as quickly as possible,” Ho said.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
RSS