PIRACY: Despite progress in Taiwan on combatting intellectual property rights violations, Washington has kept the country on its Special 301 list for this year
By Charles Snyder and Jessie Ho
The US has retained Taiwan on a list of countries with the world's worst piracy records, sparking calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Washington has ignored the nation's progress on intellectual property rights (IPR).

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By Huang Tai-lin
The union representing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) workers said yesterday it won't allow the party to dismiss the bulk of its staff to improve its finances.

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`SHAMEFUL ACTS': The US president said he wants to accelerate investigations into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and to determine whether the problem is widespread
US President George W. Bush told his defense secretary on Monday to take "strong actions" against those responsible for abusing Iraqi prisoners and quickly assess whether the problem is more widespread, as finger-pointing broke out over who is to blame in the scandal.

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Shiite militiamen in Iraq fired several mortar shells at a US base early yesterday and at a city hall guarded by Bulgarian troops in another Shiite city. Four US soldiers died after their Humvee overturned during a combat patrol north of Baghdad, the US Army said.

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North Korea is building two underground bases for new ballistic missiles with a range of up to 4,000km, a newspaper reported yesterday, citing a South Korean intelligence official.

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