Radio Taiwan International's special program From Lithuania with Love was nominated for Best Factual Podcast at the UK Association of International Broadcasting awards. It was one of the finalists in the awards ceremony that was held in London on Friday. The program reported on the growing friendship between Lithuana and Taiwan. It was hosted and produced by Natalie Tso and Staś Butler with Tomasz Koper as the audio engineer.
RTI's Taiwan Insider was the first program from Taiwan to conduct video interviews with prominent Members of Parliament such as the Chair and Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Group for Relations Matas Maldeikis and Dovilė Šakalienė and the author of the European Parliament's EU-Taiwan Report Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers. They are leading the way in building closer ties between Lithuania, Taiwan and the EU. They share why Lithuania made the bold move to stand with Taiwan despite Beijing's economic and diplomatic sanctions.
The program also highlighted the warm response from the Taiwanese peoople after Lithuanian gifted COVID vaccines to Taiwan during its vaccine shortage and welcomed a Taiwanese Representative Office to its capital Vilnius. "We suddenly became celebrities," Richard Sedinkinas, a Lithuanian in Taiwan, shares. He and other Lithuanians in Taiwan shared the endearing ways the Taiwanese showed their appreciation such as providing free taxi rides, free meals and exuberent rounds of applause at restaurants.
Maldeikis said he wants Lithuania to be a model for the EU in its relations with Taiwan. The people and government of Taiwan are grateful for Lithuania's support and are building stronger ties with Lithuania and strengthening cooperation in many sectors.
RTI's Spanish service's video feature A Journey to Explore Authentic and Traditional Peking Opera in Taiwan was a finalist for Best Short Feature.
Radio Taiwan International was the main sponsor of this year's AIB awards ceremony. The AIB awards were held on November 11 at the Church House Westminster. It saw 250 global journalists participate. This is the 18th year of the AIB awards. this year saw shortlisted entries from over 60 global media in 19 countries.
This year, RTI, AIB and the Taipei Representative Office in the UK also hosted the first Taiwan Forum in London featuring speeches from Digital Minister Audrey Tang and Taiwan Digital Diplomacy Association President Kuo Chia-yo about digital resilience and diplomacy.