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Taiwan Quick Take

■Politics
Pro-China march tomorrow
A demonstration sponsored by the Alliance for the Unification of China and eight other organizations, is scheduled to take place tomorrow. An organizer of the event said that about 10,000 people are expected to march from Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to Ta An Forest Park. On the way, they will chant such slogans as "We want jobs, not unemployment," "We want welfare, not military procurement" and "Save Taiwan, oppose Taiwan independence," the organizer said.

■ Labor
Illegal workers arrested
Six Bangladeshis were arrested yesterday in Luchow, Taipei County, for working without a permit. A police officer in Luchow said the six will be deported and their employers fined. All six came to Taiwan in 1998 on tourist visas and then overstayed. Taipei police found 18 people from the Middle East and Africa overstaying their visas or working without permits last month, including 10 from Bangladesh, five from India and one each from Lebanon, South Africa and Liberia.

■ Defense
Compulsory service term cut
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced yesterday that the mandatory military service period will be shortened by two months, beginning Jan. 1. Chen said the new rule will not apply to his son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), who is performing his two-year military service and is set to complete it on Dec. 31. Chen made the remarks during an inspection tour of the Army Artillery Command stationed on Kinmen. Military service has been mandatory for every able-bodied adult male citizen since the ROC government relocated to Taiwan in 1949. Since becoming president, Chen has made many inspection tours of Kinmen, which is located just 2.4km from Xiamen, China.

■ Immigration
Illegal immigrants nabbed
Officials from the Coast Guard Administration's southern Taiwan operations yesterday arrested five Chinese women who had sneaked into the country to engage in the sex trade. Acting on a tip, the coast guard officers and Tainan City police made a pre-dawn raid on an apartment in Chiayi City and found the women. According to the women, they had arrived separately through arrangements made by a "snakehead" ring based in Chiayi. The women said they had been in Taiwan between a few days and two months. The Coast Guard Administration said it will will continue to cooperate with police forces in carrying out "Operation Chenhai" aimed at curbing cross-strait human trafficking and maintaining social order.

■ National identity
Voters split on relationship
Voters are equally split about how the nation's tense and complicated relationship with China should be described, a newspaper poll said yesterday. Pollsters reported that 30 percent of voters agree with President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) view that China and Taiwan are separate countries, a Chinese-language newspaper said. But another 30 percent agreed with the KMT-PFP view: Taiwan and the mainland are part of one China, but each side has different definitions of what the country is, the paper said. The remaining voters did not have an opinion or didn't respond to the question. The nation's political status will be one of the major issues in next March's presidential election.

Agencies
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