Letters:

Lu's right on the mark

Thank goodness we still have people of the ilk of Vice Presi-dent Annette "loose cannon" Lu (呂秀蓮) in our midst. Despite years of personal KMT oppression, she still has the guts to tell it like it is. The Boeing Corp, given its lame protestations to the contrary, have kowtowed to the repressive PRC regime and indeed have brought "shame" on themselves. The real question is: Does anyone really care?

I would wager the spineless Boeing executive lackeys would think again if China Airlines were to cancel the contract, pay the penalties and negotiate a new contract with Airbus. It is a big shame in more ways than one, and hats off to Lu for pointing it out. When private companies can be influenced so shamelessly by big-time bully-boys, we really do need someone to make it known.

David Kinsella
Keelung

Beijing shortsighted

The recent decision by the Chinese government to resume the sale of masked palm civets and other exotic animals is shortsighted and imprudent. Several tough viral respiratory diseases in recent years, such as avian flu and SARS, have followed the same pattern of originating in Guangdong, where humans and animals lived in proximity, and spreading to Hong Kong via their increasingly porous border and then the rest of the world by international travelers.

The remission of SARS is probably weather-related; it does not prove that these animals are safe -- as pets or food. Will the Cantonese, among the most adventurous gourmands who "eat anything with wings except a plane," please change their gastronomic habits?

Vincent Wang
Richmond, Virginia

Ex-dictator unmourned

With Osama bin Laden and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein having so dominated the news, it became easy to forget about that brutal dictator Idi Amin, who was responsible for the murder of over 100,000 Africans ("End of tyrant as Idi Amin dies, Aug, 17, page 1).

That Amin should himself have been welcomed by Saudi Arabia to enjoy years of hospitality instead of being tried for the mass murder of Ugandans is an injustice that may now prove impossible to rectify.

Yonie Zukowsky
Pardess Hanna, Israel