■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
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
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