■Internet
E-mails protest against BBC
A pro-Taiwan Web site recently launched a "one man, one e-mail" campaign against the BBC's online Chinese news service because it places Taiwan-based news in its China coverage section (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/chinese/news/default2.stm) section. The Countering the Media Web site has asked visitors to its site to send an e-mail to BBC's online Chinese news service to protest their coverage. The Web site also urged people to e-mail the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government Information Office to push them to raise the issue with the BBC. The Web site published its own protest e-mail to the British company that said, "Taiwan is not part of China. We can not accept that the BBC put Taiwan news as part of China news, just like you will not accept putting British news as part of American news."
■ Custody battle
Chen seeks win-win situation
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that he wants a win-win result in the custody battle concerning a Taiwan- Brazilian orphan. "I am very concerned about Iruan Ergui Wu's (吳憶樺) wish to stay in Taiwan. Government agencies will try their best to help, but we must also respect the judicial procedure," Chen said in his newsletter posted on the Internet yesterday. "I believe we all hope there will be a satisfactory solution and there will be a win-win situation, so that Iruan can grow up happily," Chen said. Chen was responding to a question e-mailed to him by a Taiwan youth who asked Chen to help Iruan provided that Chen did not interfere with the legal procedure of the custody battle.
■ Survey
Public wants independence
The majority of Taiwanese polled by a popular cable TV news station said they were leaning more toward independence, not unification with China. The TVBS survey released yesterday said that 42 percent of the respondents said they were more partial to a permanent split with China. But 37 percent said they favored unifying with China and healing the rift caused by a civil war more than five decades ago, the poll said. The pollsters didn't ask the respondents if they wanted to maintain the status quo -- not declaring formal independence, while not being committed to eventual unification with China. But 8 percent said they favored the status quo, and 13 percent had no opinion, TVBS said. When asked if they favored unifying with China or becoming part of the US, 49 percent said they would rather unify with China. Twenty-nine percent favored joining the US, while 10 percent opposed both options and 13 percent had no opinion, the poll said.
■ Entertainment
Jackie Chan in Taipei
Hong Kong megastar Jackie Chan (成龍) says he's sticking with kung-fu movies and has no plans to act in films featuring other martial arts, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which have become popular in recent years. "My fans and producers have also dissuaded me from switching," to other martial arts, Chan told reporters yesterday. The actor was in Taiwan promoting his latest movie, Shanghai Knights, about a US sheriff from the Old West who goes to London to track down his father's killer. Chan said that in kung-fu films, the actors kick and box, and need to be more skillful than in other martial arts films, such as the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where the actors often fly or perform other gravity-defying acts.
Agencies
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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