Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Neo-Formosa Magazine Launch and Chen Shui-bian's Defense

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Today Chen Shui-bian's Office will be launching or re-starting the publication of the Neo-Formosa Magazine, a magazine for which Chen was charged with libel twenty-three years ago. Chen's Office will use that occasion to present some of the key points in their defense against the indictments that he faces and the up-coming judgment by the court on September 11. Below is the abstract of their case, a case that they are bringing to the people because in their mind, the court has been biased not only in its indictments but also their imprisonment and handling of the trial. Of all the accused political people in Taiwan's history, whether Party chiefs, presidential candidates, party chairman etc. Chen is the only one who was jailed and held incommunicado for over a half a year. The abstract follows.

Freedom fading fast in Hong Kong

Taipei Times

Hong Kong received sharp reminders this past week that it must continue to fight Beijing if it hopes to retain the freedoms enshrined in its Basic Law and the independence of its government agencies and judiciary. For years, civic groups have pointed to signs that Hong Kong’s freedoms are eroding. This week, an attack on Hong Kong journalists in China proper was the latest reminder that the rights Hong Kong residents enjoy apply only within the territory.

Ma no longer ruler of his domain

Taipei Times

No sooner had Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama left Taiwan than senior Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials were breathing a sigh of relief, as if an undesirable guest had forced himself upon an otherwise placid household.

That reaction would have been understandable if, say, it had been hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden passing through Taiwan, but the Dalai Lama, a proponent of peaceful resistance and icon for universal values of freedom and liberty?

September, as the World Turns in Taiwan: the Anti-Climax of Wu Shu-jen

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

The court finally gave its sentence in the trial of Wu Shu-jen for implied money-laundering, corruption, manipulating state funds etc. etc. all those dark insinuations and charges that Taiwan has been forced to listen to from the pan-blue media for over the past two years. In the final analysis, after the trial, after the accusations, and after all the vindictiveness, Wu's sentence proved we had gone through all of this to listen to sound and fury signifying nothing. At best this sentence was, to say the least, anti-climatic.

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