Taiwan's two largest cities --Taipei in the north and Kaohsiungin the south --to one-and-a-half hours has been selected as the top domestic news event of 2007. The Central News Agency annually selects the year's top 10 local news stories. For this year, the selection was based on events occurring before Nov. 30.
The inauguration of the 345-km high speed railway which has emerged as one of Taiwan's most important long-distance transport arteries linking all major cities and counties in western Taiwan has drawn prominent media coverage in Taiwan, leading to its selection by CNA as the top news story of 2007.
Second on the top 10 list is the successive breakouts of financial scandals involving Rebar Asia Pacific Group and Eastern Multimedia Group, led by Wang You-theng and his son Gary Wang, respectively.
The Wangs were accused of having embezzled more than NT$100 billion (US$3.09 billion) in corporate funds and committing a spate of other financial crimes. The senior Wang and his wife remain at large in the United States, while Gary Wang has been detained for investigations. The snowballing Wang family financial scandals led to the resignation of Shih Jun-ji as Financial Supervisory Commission chairman on Jan. 12.
Other news events that made the top 10 list are as follows in order of importance:
-- The 2008 presidential election is poised to be a "final duel" between the country's two bitter rival political camps that will pit the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket of Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng chang against the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) team of Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew.
-- Investigations into suspected misuse of "special allowance funds" by incumbent and former senior government officials continue unceasingly. Ma Ying-jeou was indicted on charges of graft over misuse of the public funds allocated for his discretionary use during his tenure as Taipei mayor from 1998-2006 but was acquitted in the first trial. In the DPP-led "pan-green" camp, Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng-chang were exonerated of any corruption charges with regard to their use of public funds during their respective tenures as premier and local government head, but Vice President Annette Lu and former Premier Yu Shyi-kun were indicted on charges of embezzlement of public funds.
-- Skyrocketing oil and raw material prices, coupled with typhoon damage, have fueled an upward spiral in domestic consumer prices, with the annual growth rate of the Consumer Price Index reaching a 13-year high of 5.34 percent in October.
-- The government applied to join the United Nations under the name Taiwan for the first time. The Executive Yuan has launched an intensive publicity campaign to drum up support for this new policy, with the ruling DPP initiating a referendum on the bid to be held alongside next year's presidential election scheduled for March 22. As a counter move, the KMT initiated a referendum on the country applying to return to the United Nations under its official title, the Republic of China.
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