New diplomatic brushfires broke out almost immediately among the plush cottages of the top-scale Sea Island resort, even as US President George W. Bush led Iraq's new interim ruler onto the world stage.
World leaders yesterday wrapped up the latest G8 summit after a new era of trans-Atlantic unity dissolved in just one day into fresh US-France spats and squabbles over Iraq's US$120 billion debt pile.
The summit of G8 industrialized nations had been billed as a chance to consign old animosity over the US invasion to history, after the West closed ranks to pass a new UN resolution on Iraq Tuesday.
Leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US did manage to agree on Bush's controversial reform plan for the Islamic world.
They also endorsed an end-of-July target for an outline deal on the most divisive issues in global trade talks, unveiled measures to halt transfers of nuclear technology and endorsed airline security improvements.
Yesterday, the G8 leaders will meet several counterparts from Africa, including South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Senegal's Abdulaye Wade, in a bid to head off claims they only pay lip service to the continent's woes.
Then Bush and other leaders will hold final press conferences. The US leader will go straight to Washington to pay his final respects to late former president Ronald Reagan, lying in state in Washington.
Interim Iraqi president Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar's first international bow at the swank private beach resort hosting the rich-nations summit was a world removed from the violence of postwar Iraq.
"Mr President, I'd like to express to you the commitment of the Iraqi people to move towards democracy," he said at his first-ever meeting with Bush.
Bush replied: "I really never thought I'd be sitting next to an Iraqi president of a free country a year and half ago."
But just one day after France signed up to a US-sponsored resolution at the UN on Iraqi sovereignty, the fractious allies were at loggerheads again -- on a handful of issues.
They clashed on NATO's role in Iraq, after Bush called for a greater presence of the Western alliance in the occupation.
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
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