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.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS