Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (劉德勳) on Friday confirmed that Beijing has partially lifted the block on Taiwanese media Web sites in some regions in China. This is a long overdue but highly welcome move, despite the restrictions that remain in place.

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By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
The Social Ethics Association of Taiwan recently published its annual Social Trust Survey. The survey shows that 60.3 percent of respondents said they trust strangers, but only 36.1 percent said they trust President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

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By Sushil Seth
Democracy is alive and kicking in Taiwan, as was demonstrated again by the recent municipal elections. But the results of the elections might not be all that comforting for those who would like Taiwan to be independent. By all accounts, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has done pretty well. And some even forecast its return to power in next year's presidential elections.

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By Dan Bloom
In the current run-up to next year's Summer Olympics in Beijing, the Communist Party media minders inside China have relaxed the rules a bit for foreign journalists, but many people remain skeptical about this new openness. Is it genuine, and more importantly, will it last longer than a year and a half?

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From Moby Dick to the Thames bottlenose, whales have captured the human imagination like almost no other animal
By Stephen Moss
As soon as you enter the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, you start getting directions to the blue whale. Of all the stars in this strange, dead celebration of life's variety, the blue whale is the starriest. Naturally, it is housed in the "blue zone." If ever an animal required a zone to itself, it is the blue whale.

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By Nina Khrushcheva
The death watch for Cuban President Fidel Castro is something that only Gabriel Garcia Marquez could get right. His novel Autumn of the Patriarch captures perfectly the moral squalor, political paralysis, and savage ennui that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator.

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