EMBEZZLEMENT CHARGES: The KMT presidential candidate said the High Court's not guilty verdict would only encourage the DPP to redouble efforts to suppress him
By Rich Chang, Mo Yan-chih and Jenny W. Hsu
The Taiwan High Court yesterday found Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) not guilty of corruption. Ma had been indicted on Feb. 13 on charges of embezzling NT$11 million (US$338,000) from his special mayoral allowance during his eight years as Taipei mayor.

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ASSASSINATED: Furious supporters of the late opposition leader went on the rampage as her funeral procession began at her ancestral residence
Al-Qaeda militants and the Taliban were behind the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, a top official said yesterday. Bhutto, a widely admired former prime minister, was buried in her ancestral home amid a raw outpouring of grief by hundreds of thousands of mourners.

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Rescuers used their bare hands and shovels yesterday to pry muddy corpses from Indonesian villages devastated by landslides, as flooding blocked heavy equipment from reaching a disaster zone where at least 87 people were killed or feared dead.

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Tokyo opposes Taiwan's planned referendum on UN membership, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said yesterday after holding talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶).

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REGULATIONS: Labor officials were swayed by complaints from schools that work permit rules were shutting students out of research projects
By Angelica Oung
The Council of Labor Affairs is set to allow foreign graduate students to obtain work permits as soon as they begin their studies, as long as their school attests that the work is related to their studies.

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