saco-indonesia.com, Gubernur Jawa Barat Ahmad Heryawaan (Aher) telah mengucapkan selamat Hari Pers Nasional (HPN) yang jatuh pada 9 Februari. Dalam kehidupan berbangsa dan berdemokrasi, Aher telah menilai peran pers menjadi bagian penting dari demokrasi.

"Selamat HPN, kepada semua pihak, semua terkait dengan pers. Pers bagian dari kehidupan. Pilar kebangsaan demokrasi saat ini. Sekarang selain pers ada civil society, media berpengaruh, kekuatan modal juga berpengaruh," tegas Aher usai dalam menghadiri acara Sarasehan Nasional Ulama Pesantren dan Cendikiawan di Depok, Jawa Barat, Minggu (09/02/2014) kemarin.

Aher juga mengusulkan agar media dapat membuat keseimbangan. Selama ini, kata dia, peran kontrol oleh media terlalu menonjol. "Sementara peran pendidikan dan hiburan kurang. Kalau peran kontrol sudah baik, bahkan kelebihan, terlalu over kelebihan peran kontrol, sudah paling top deh," katanya sambil tertawa.

Aher juga menambahkan membangun bangsa harus seimbang melalui tulisan media dalam hal produksi kata yang jangan provokatif. Sebab media, lanjutnya, adalah lembaga yang mempunyai peran amat strategis.

"Tak ada kemajuan tanpa media. Tak ada kecerdasan bangsa tanpa media, media memasivekan banyak hal. Marilah hadirkan fakta media. Kalau fakta suda hadir maka harus seimbang, supaya cover both side," tutupnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.