Taiwan News Quick Take

■ POLITICS
St. Lucian PM dies
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will send a representative to attend the funeral of St. Lucian Prime Minister Sir John Compton, who died on Friday aged 82. Compton engineered the resumption of diplomatic ties with Taiwan in May. Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) yesterday said that he broke the news to Chen yesterday morning at the Taiwan-Africa Summit in Taipei. Huang said Chen was sorry to learn of the death of Compton and immediately extended condolences to his wife. Huang added that Chen will send a special envoy to attend the state funeral and that he did not think Compton's death would affect the relations between the two countries.

■ TRADE
PRC importing more goods
Taiwan China's third-largest source of imports in the first seven months of this year, trailing only Japan and South Korea, according to tallies published by the Chinese customs office. China imported some US$53.02 billion worth of products and services from Taiwan during the January-July period, marking an increase of 11.43 percent year-on-year, Chinese customs statistics showed. In terms of growth in exports to China, Taiwan ranked only 9th among 11 major exporting countries to China during the seven-month period, with a growth of 11.43 percent, compared to Japan's 17.1 percent and South Korea's 14.9 percent. Nevertheless, Taiwan surpassed Japan and South Korea in terms of integrated circuit and liquid-crystal-display (LCD) products exported to China in the seven-month period, according to the statistics. Integrated circuits and LCD products made up the bulk of products that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan exported to China over the seven-month period. Taiwanese-made integrated circuits and LCD products currently constitute 22.6 percent and 36.5 percent respectively of the domestic market in China.

■ DIPLOMACY
You Ching arrives in Berlin
Taiwan's representative to Germany, You Ching (尤清), arrived in Berlin on Saturday to assume his post. You, his wife and son, were warmly welcomed upon their arrival, where dozens of people, including officials from the Taipei Representative Office in Berlin and Taiwanese expatriates in Germany, showed up to greet them. You is no stranger to Germany, having studied there for five years. He later returned to Germany for advanced studies at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. During his tenure as Taipei County commissioner, You actively promoted "city diplomacy," enabling Taipei County to form ties with the southern German county of Starnberg.

■ CRIME
Police bust vice ring
Police a human smuggling and prostitution ring yesterday in Miaoli County consisting of six members from the same family, and took five Indonesian women into custody. Officers from the National Highway Police Bureau's Criminal Investigation Brigade arrested Lin Hsi-ling (林錫鈴), 50, his son, daughter, sister's husband and two other family members in Houlung Township (後龍) on charges of smuggling foreign women for prostitution. A police spokesman said the ring quartered the women in a worker's dormitory in a remote mountainous area and placed them under strict control, and that ring members would escort the women to customers. He said police had kept the ring under surveillance for two months before taking action.