The announcement on Thursday that the Mainland Affairs Council had drawn up a fresh draft asylum law was good news indeed. The decision followed a flurry of media attention surrounding Chinese would-be refugee Wu Yalin (吳亞林), who arrived with a tour group on Dec. 27 and requested asylum.

[ FULL STORY ]

By Hsu Yue-dian and Chang Li-chun 許育典，張立群
HOW WOULD IT make you feel if the government required that you rate your own words when you want to share a steamy sexual experience with the readers of your personal blog, or if in a moment of anger you wanted to criticize the government or another person? Wouldn't it make you angry if a representative of the state deleted your own statement from your blog and then issued a fine?

[ FULL STORY ]

By Tang Fei 唐飛
TAIWAN'S DEMOCRACY HAS reached a watershed: Its future development depends upon the integrity of the parliamentary system, which in turn relies on the impartial help of each and every political party.

[ FULL STORY ]

The patronizing response to events in Kenya again betrays the West's ignorance and lack of respect toward the entire continent
By Richard Dowden
Imagine: At the end of World War II, the US and the Soviet Union decide they are tired of tribal warfare in Europe. The century is only halfway through and already some 90 million people have been slaughtered.

[ FULL STORY ]

Petraeus talks to everyday people in rural Iraq, warning them that the way to peace is to end feuding among tribes
"Our main concern is to find the rat lines," says General David Petraeus as he pores over maps at a US military base on the banks of the Euphrates River, "and having found them, to close them."

[ FULL STORY ]

Taiwan's plan to hold a referendum on joining the UN under the name of "Taiwan" has challenged the US position on Taiwan's status.

[ FULL STORY ]

I agree with Kao Shih-fan (高士凡, "Keeping it English in the classroom," Dec. 25, page 8) that learning by speaking and listening in small groups compares favorably to learning through large group discussions or traditional teacher-centered activities, but no matter how many English teachers agree that interaction and communication is how language is best learned, studies show that there are more efficient and rewarding ways to teach English than by staging the dog and pony shows that in large Taiwanese institutions have come to represent the communicative approach.

[ FULL STORY ]