`COMMON GOAL': While the DPP vowed to ramp up its referendum signature drive, the president said the nation was starting to feel pressure from China via Washington
By Flora Wang and Mo Yan-chih
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday vowed to carry on with plans to hold a referendum on seeking UN membership under the name "Taiwan," despite a warning from US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that the US government considers it a move toward independence.

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SOUTH KOREAN CHRISTIANS: The Islamic movement handed over 10 women and two men to Red Crescent officials after Seoul struck a deal with it on Tuesday
The Taliban freed 12 of their 19 South Korean captives yesterday as the wrenching six-week hostage crisis in Afghanistan neared resolution.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki clamped a curfew on the shrine city of Karbala yesterday after gunbattles in its crowded streets turned a Shiite pilgrimage into a bloodbath with 52 people dead.

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The Philippines yesterday braced for retaliatory strikes by communist insurgents after their party leader was arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of ordering the murders of former allies.

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Turkey's new president, a devout Muslim who has vowed to respect the division of Islam and state, yesterday faced his first task: a review of the new Cabinet proposed by his old ally, the prime minister.

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Police in Beijing said they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.

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