PROGRESSIVE REFORM: The president asserted that constitutional re-engineering was a reasonable act that would cement the country's democratic achievements
By Jimmy Chuang
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday said that his desire to push for a new constitution was not an attempt to move Taiwan toward de jure independence as China has alleged, but to cement the nation's democracy.

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Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) will replace David Lee (李大維) as the country's representative to the US and Lee will be transferred to head the country's mission in Canada, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) has learned.

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Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh presented yesterday a new Hamas-Fatah coalition government to parliament aimed at ending a turbulent year of bloodshed and international boycott.

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NO COOPERATION: A British soldier's widow said she had been badly let down by the US government, but added that she did not want to see the US pilot prosecuted
The killing of a British soldier in Iraq by a US pilot was a "criminal, unlawful act" that was tantamount to manslaughter, a British coroner ruled on Friday.

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Ten detainees in a British military detention center in Basra carried out an audacious escape plan over the past several days: They switched places with visitors, British authorities said on Friday.

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A senior US Treasury Department official said yesterday that Macau will have to decide whether to release North Korean funds frozen at a bank accused of helping the North launder money and handle counterfeit currency.

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