The high-profile trial of the former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers in a Manhattan federal court last week underlines the US push toward greater corporate accountability. It also highlights an urgency to eradicate corporate scandals in Taiwan, where the government is moving in the right direction but making little progress to build investor confidence.

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By Nat Bellocchi 白樂崎
The world continues to watch the relations between Taiwan and China, weighing how potential developments may impact on the interests of individual countries. The focus as usual is on the rhetoric emanating from the three most important players -- the US, China and Taiwan. Too often, however, developments are based on how domestic events unfold at home.

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By Chen Chi-nan 陳其南
Recently, some media and elected representatives severely criticized certain newly-built or planned cultural facilities. I personally think that such criticism misses the point.

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By Chang Bao-yuan 張葆源
The stronger the pursuit of commercial interests is for Taiwanese broadcasters, the more garbage is thrown at consumers. Today, our news broadcasts cover sensational stories and pieces on the private lives of celebrities. Broadcasters compete with one another for stories such as an entertainer receiving a big diamond ring or having an affair. As I witness the bizarre sensationalism of our news programs, I can't help but wonder, "What have entertainers' private lives got to do with me?"

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By Ralf Dahrendorf
Some years ago the historian Fritz Stern wrote a book about Germany entitled The Politics of Cultural Despair. He used the example of three (now forgotten) bestselling authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to show the deep aversion of many Germans to the modern world, notably to market economics and democratic politics. For Stern, this was part of the cultural soil in which National Socialism flourished.

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By Bronislaw Geremek
In the weeks since France and the Netherlands rejected the EU's proposed constitutional treaty, the EU's leaders have been busy pointing fingers at each other or blaming French and Dutch citizens for misunderstanding the question they were asked. But no pan-European statesman has emerged, and no major European institution has even had the courage to provide its own analysis of the current situation, much less propose a strategic scenario for the future.

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