Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taipei confirms ‘secret’ channels

Taipei Times

The Presidential Office yesterday confirmed that Taipei and Beijing have been using unofficial communication channels, adding that all matters concerning the exercise of public power must be handled by quasi-official conduits and supervised by the legislature.

Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said cross-strait exchanges and communications consisted of official and unofficial channels.

Academics warn of danger to democracy

Taipei Times

Academics assessing the nation’s democratic performance during the first half of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) term yesterday urged the public “to provoke disputes” to revive the system of checks and balances that they said has been noticeably weakened under Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) rule.

“The nation’s democracy has been in peril these past two years and I have been wondering on ways to resolve it, and my conclusion is that intellectuals must use [their] knowledge to provoke [public] disputes,” said Liu Chin-hsing (劉進興), professor of chemistry at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Los Angeles vigil for Taiwan enters fifth month outside federal builing

Michael Richardson

The Defense and State Departments in Washington, D.C. know nothing about a United States Military Government for Taiwan but federal employees in Los Angeles can explain that is what motivates two dozen protesters each week.

Each week, regardless of weather conditions, two dozen dedicated people return every Tuesday to the Los Angeles federal building to ask the United States to evict the Republic of China in-exile from Taiwan.

Judicial bias harder to disbelieve

Taipei Times Editorial

Critics who charge that the impartiality of the judicial system has regressed under the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were presented with more ammunition on Wednesday when prosecutors announced the results of their probe into Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) use of his special allowance fund.

Absolving Wang of any responsibility for handling his financial affairs, prosecutors said they were instead considering pressing forgery charges against three of his aides for using fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements.

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