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Taiwan Quick Take

■ Year-end Polls
KMT approves candidates
The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) top policy body approved the party's nominees in Hsinchu, Taoyuan County and Miaoli County for the year-end mayoral and country commissioner elections yesterday. Leaving only the party's nominations for Taitung, Kinmen and Lienchiang open, the KMT's Central Standing Committee yesterday passed proposals supporting Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫) and Hsinchu Mayor Lin Junq-tzer (林政則) for another term in office. The committee also passed a proposal to give the party's nomination for Maioli County commissioner to KMT Legislator Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻). The party is set to negotiate with pan-blue allies the People First Party and the New Party on the pan-blue camp's nominations in Kinmen and Lienchang, the KMT said yesterday.

■ Diplomacy
Lu to visit Palau
On behalf of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) will leave Sunday for a four-day state visit to Palau, the Presidential Office announced yesterday. Palau is one of Taiwan's 26 diplomatic allies. Palauan President Tommy Remengesau recently renewed his invitation to Chen for a visit to the South Pacific island nation. Chen, who visited Palau in January, is unable to make the trip due to a tight schedule and thereby asked Lu to make the visit on his behalf, Presidential Office spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗) said. Taiwanese tourists comprise more than 60 percent of the estimated 70,000 annual visitors to Palau.

■ Politics
Soong the sole candidate
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday registered for the PFP's chairmanship election, making him the only candidate for the party's top post. In the last few hours before the PFP's registration deadline for next month's election passed yesterday, PFP Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng (秦金生) registered Soong's candidacy, ending speculation that Soong was not willing to continue as the party's leader. Until his registration yesterday, Soong had not said clearly whether he would run again for the post, provoking rumors that he was too weary of the PFP's challenges to consider continuing. Throughout the party's registration period, none of the party's legislators challenged Soong's possible candidacy, despite the recent turmoil within the party's ranks. A number of legislators expressed dissatisfaction with Soong earlier this year following the party's devastating loss the in the National Assembly elections.

■ Crime
Man gets death sentence
A Taiwanese man has been sentenced to death in Vietnam after being convicted of killing his Vietnamese wife, a Vietnamese court official said yesterday. Sixty-eight-year-old Kim Chun-sung was convicted of killing Ha Thi Lan, 28, while she was talking on the phone with a friend last November, said Tran Dong, a judge of the Khanh Hoa provincial people's court. "After hitting her in the head with a hammer, Lan didn't die. Kim gave her dozens of stabs with a kitchen knife," Dong said. "One of the stabs completely cut her spine." Kim tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat after killing his wife, but he survived after two weeks of hospital treatment, said the judge from the province 400km north of Ho Chi Minh City.

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