■Election
Ethnic conflicts worry voters
More than 40 percent of respondents to two surveys conducted in Taipei and Kaohsiung are worried about ethnic conflicts' potential impact on the 2004 presidential election, according to results released yesterday. The surveys, conducted by the China Times Public Opinion Survey Center, showed that only 16.9 percent of Taipei respondents and 23.3 percent of Kaohsiung respondents said that ethnic conflicts were a serious matter in the Dec. 7 elections for mayors and city councilors. However, 42 percent of Taipei respondents and 43.5 percent of those in Kaohsiung said that ethnic conflicts might become a contentious issue in the 2004 presidential election. More than 1,000 people in both Taipei and Kaohsiung were polled.
■ Japan
Ceremony honors Lee
Nearly 1,500 Japanese people attended an inauguration ceremony yesterday in Tokyo in honor of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). In his congratulatory message to the ceremony marking the inauguration of the "Japanese Association of Lee Teng-hui's Friends," President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said the government has attached great importance to the relationship between the two countries and expressed the hope that they could strengthen their cooperation in economic, cultural and other fields. Lee and Vice President Annette Lu addressed the gathering via video link. Lee talked about the traditional spirit of Taiwanese and Japanese peoples, while Lu expressed the hope that Japan could review its political relationship with Taiwan and negotiate a free-trade agreement with Taiwan as soon as possible.
■ Environment
Bag-ban meets opposition
Lawmakers and labor unions have urged the government to postpone a more stringent ban on the use of plastic bags and disposable food containers and tableware ahead of a demonstration slated for tomorrow by businesses against the decision. Legislator Jheng San-yuan (鄭三元) of the PFP, as well as representatives of a labor union for the jobless made the call at a joint news conference at the Legislative Yuan over the weekend. They suggested that the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) temporarily halt the move -- set to be implemented Jan. 1 -- until complementary measures have been worked out to avoid further job losses. Implementing the ban will lead to more factory closures and layoffs, further worsening the domestic job market, they claimed.
■ Aviation
Carriers cut HK transit times
Some air carriers operating flights between Taiwan and China have cut transit time in Hong Kong to about one hour, in an attempt to attract passengers, industry sources said yesterday. For Air Macau and the Hong Kong-based Dragon Airlines, which are not required to change planes during flights between Taiwan and China, the transit stop in Hong Kong or Macau takes as little as 40 minutes. The other carriers flying the route, such as China Airlines, Mandarin Airlines, EVA Air, Cathay Pacific Airways and Trans Asia Airways, all have agreements with mainland carriers, which fly their passengers on to more than 30 Chinese cities, but the stopover time varies from one to two hours, depending on where the passengers are heading.
Agencies
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift