OLYMPIC LEAVE: After incurring the ire of the business community with tighter visa rules, Beijing now plans to have all foreign students gone for July and August
China plans to order most foreign students to leave Beijing before the Olympic Games in August, strictly regulate the issuing of business and tourist visas, and deport refugees, sources said yesterday.

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Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the Church’s child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands in Washington yesterday.

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The Gaza Strip braced for more violence yesterday after three Israeli soldiers and 18 Palestinians, including a cameraman for an international news agency, were killed in a helicopter-backed incursion.

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: With the court upholding lethal injections, Virginia lifted its moratorium on the death penalty, with more states ready to follow
By approving the most widely used method of lethal injection, a fractious US Supreme Court has cleared the way for states to end the longest pause in executions in a quarter-century.

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By Mo Yan-chih
President-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he would consider moving the Presidential Office, currently housed in a building occupied by the Japanese governor-general during the colonial period, to Guandu (關渡), on the outskirts of Taipei City, as a symbolic gesture liberating the country from its colonial past.

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By Flora Wang
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday urged Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) to lead the call to turn the southern city into the nation’s second capital.

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