Taipei - Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian on Thursday
criticized the US-based Associated Press (AP) news agency and the US
cable TV network CNN for their 'biased' story on Vice President
Annette Lu.
Speaking at a dinner party for foreign envoys, Chen said that when
Lu registered to join the 2008 presidential election on Tuesday, two
foreign news outlets adopted China's unobjective terminology and used
'rude and irresponsible words' in the headline of their story.
'I believe that any professional media group would not quote
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's words to criticize or attack US
President George W Bush, and use Chavez's words as the headline. But
such an unfortunate thing has happened to Vice President Lu,' Chen
said.
The controversy erupted on Tuesday when Lu held a news conference
to declare she would run for president in the 2008 election.
AP filed a story on Lu's candidacy, saying in the lead that she
was branded by China as 'insane' and 'the scum of the nation,' and
said in the third paragraph that Lu's chances of winning were slim.
CNN carried the entire AP story on its website, but used its own
headline 'Taiwan's 'scum of the nation' runs for president,'
triggering an immediate protest from Lu's office.
Lu said the CNN story had insulted her and the Taiwan people. She
demanded an apology and a correction, and did not rule out seeking
damages.
CNN later changed its headline to 'Lu seeks to be first Taiwan
woman president,' but has not apologized yet.
Lu also sent a protest letter to AP on Wednesday, demanding an
apology and a correction within 48 hours.
AP's headquarters in New York apologized to Lu on Thursday and
instructed its Taipei bureau to conducts an interview with Lu to
produce balanced reporting, Lu told reporters.
In an interview with the cable TV channel TVBS on Wednesday, Lu
said she could not understand why AP was using words which China used
to blast her in 2002, calling the report 'unacceptable' and
'unforgivable.'
Lu, 62, a former dissident, human rights activist and lawmaker,
angered China by openly declaring that Taiwan and China are two
countries and condemning Beijing's missile threats against Taiwan as
terrorism, prompting China's Taiwan expert Liu Jiayan to brand her
the 'scum of the nation' in a 2002 article.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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