Taiwan

Marylanders may get a naked-eye look at a comet this month. Comet Lulin was discovered in 2007 by astronomers in China and Taiwan, and it has rounded the sun, headed our way. It's now low in the southwest before dawn, too dim to see without a telescope. But by Feb. 24 it should be faintly visible to the naked eye (and easy to see with binoculars) near Saturn, high in the southeast before midnight.

CHINESE Prime Minister Zhu Rongji arrived in the United States yesterday to find himself in a country only temporarily distracted by the war in Kosovo from a vigorous debate about the American approach to China.The debate is a version of the joke about the two men who take their dispute to a judge. The first presents his case and the judge says, "You're right." The second then presents his case and the judge again says, "You're right.""But your honor," the first man says, "we can't both be right," to which the judge replies, "you're right."

The 11-year odyssey was frequently frustrating and sometimes excruciating.But Javier De La Hoya endured it all and a week ago made his first start in Triple-A baseball a winning one after stops with four major-league organizations, and appearances in his native Mexico and in Taiwan.In his debut with Rochester, De La Hoya shut down the New York Yankees' Triple-A franchise, Columbus, on two runs for seven innings in a 10-2 victory that ended the Red Wings' season-high nine-game losing streak.

Both Turkey and Taiwan have effectively adopted the California building requirements for earthquakes, which are intended to enable occupants to get out alive in a major earthquake even if the structure is rendered unusable, American experts said yesterday. The difference is in enforcement.The basic techniques involve using reinforced concrete walls and columns, deep foundations and joints to transfer the stresses of a swaying structure from crossbeams to vertical columns."Here, we have reasonable conformity," said Peter I. Yanev, president of EQE International, a leading international earthquake engineering and safety company based in San Francisco, who recently returned from Turkey.

WASHINGTON -- The United States has decided to sell an early warning radar system to Taiwan that would allow the Taiwanese to monitor the launch of Chinese ballistic missiles or manned bombers, Clinton administration officials said yesterday.The sale has drawn protests from Beijing and was opposed by a group of mid-level administration officials who believed that it would worsen recent tensions between Washington and Beijing.The administration approved the sale at the recommendation of senior policy-makers from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon who believed that China's deployment of large numbers of short-range missiles along its coastline posed a serious military threat to Taiwan, officials said.

The Kennedy-Bessette tragedy was a huge story because A. the networks dictate the public's interest; B. the public dictates television's; C. a bit of both, which nobody understands. Choose one.China dares not invade Taiwan, lest Taiwan divest from China.Roberto L. Marsili for mayor! A candidacy carved in stone.David Cone for senator from New York!Pub Date: 7/20/99

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- On one level, they spoke the same language. On a deeper level, they couldn't communicate at all.That is how Chiang Pei-ling recalls her experience with several mainland Chinese students during an exchange program a few years ago. At first, they chatted comfortably. When the topic turned to politics, though, they argued over the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown -- which one mainland student insisted had never occurred."We were surprised," says Chiang, now a 25-year-old law student here at National Chengchi University.

IS GEORGE W. Bush what some of his critics say he is -- a squishy, establishment Republican, whose heart is not in matters of the soul like abortion or in lowering taxes, shrinking government and toughening our foreign policy so our adversaries will again respect us?Who better to answer that question than the governor himself?Mr. Bush called from the road the other day. I ask him what signal can he send to anxious conservatives that he will not, if nominated and elected, disappoint them?He begins by talking about his faith in Jesus, but for the moment I am less interested in how he's getting to heaven than in how he plans to get to Washington and what he intends to do there.

BEIJING -- Taiwan has abandoned the political formula that has long kept the peace with China, declaring yesterday that it will no longer adhere to the line that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan are two parts of the same country.Beijing's response was immediate and furious.Taking a step away from the conceptual umbrella of eventual reunification between China and Taiwan that has been a basic condition of all talks between them, President Lee Teng-hui made a risky move that badly soured Taiwan's relations with China and could also worsen the strains in the troubled ties between China and the United States.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- China swiftly rejected Taiwan's attempt to repair relations yesterday, returning -- unopened -- a letter that explained President Lee Teng-hui's controversial call for "special state-to-state" ties.Lee's declaration this month that Taiwan should be recognized as a "special state" and not a renegade Chinese province infuriated Beijing, which interpreted it as a move toward independence. Beijing hinted that it would suspend planned talks unless Taipei "clarified" the statement.

Marylanders may get a naked-eye look at a comet this month. Comet Lulin was discovered in 2007 by astronomers in China and Taiwan, and it has rounded the sun, headed our way. It's now low in the southwest before dawn, too dim to see without a telescope. But by Feb. 24 it should be faintly visible to the naked eye (and easy to see with binoculars) near Saturn, high in the southeast before midnight.

Pelosi backs bill to aid ailing auto industry WASHINGTON: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for "emergency and limited financial assistance" for the battered auto industry yesterday and urged the outgoing Bush administration to join lawmakers in reaching a quick compromise. Four days after dismal financial reports from General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., Pelosi backed legislation to make the automakers eligible for help under the $700 billion bailout measure that cleared Congress in October.

Palins' income tax returns released 5 WASHINGTON: The McCain campaign released financial documents yesterday showing that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska had assets of over $1 million, consisting largely of an ample retirement portfolio, real estate and her husband's commercial fishing business. Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, kept her tax rate low by putting all of her investments in tax-deferred accounts. In addition, she did not report as income the $17,000 that she received in per diem payments from the state while she remained at her home in Wasilla, a position debated by tax experts.

WASHINGTON - The Air Force's top civilian and chief officer were forced to resign yesterday after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates concluded that the service was lacking proper leadership in overseeing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Gates pointed to a failure of leadership in the Air Force's top echelon, including Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, as he announced the shake-up at the Pentagon. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Air Force mistakenly sent a shipment of fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006 in the place of helicopter batteries.

BEIJING - A top Taiwanese politician arrived in China yesterday for a six-day visit amid hope for warmer relations between the longtime foes. The head of the island's ruling party will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao during a groundbreaking visit that follows the May 20 inauguration of a new Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, who is eager to fulfill a campaign pledge of improving ties. For China, the visit provides an opportunity ahead of the Olympic Games in August to project itself as a superpower committed to world peace.

While upheaval in Tibet and a devastating earthquake in Sichuan have dominated the headlines over the past month, the greatest danger to East Asian stability and Sino-American relations is another crisis in the Taiwan Strait. The people of Taiwan are ambivalent about cross-strait ties, and some demand independence, despite threats from the People's Republic of China. Washington has called for peaceful resolution of the dispute while pressuring Taiwan's leaders to avoid provocations and demanding that China's leaders eschew violence.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The foreign minister of Taiwan and two other top officials resigned yesterday over a botched attempt to win diplomatic recognition from Papua New Guinea, a scandal that has stirred public outrage against the outgoing government just two weeks before it is to step down. Taipei was embarrassed by the public disclosure that about $30 million, which had been intended for Papua New Guinea in exchange for its switching diplomatic allegiance from Beijing, had disappeared. While the resignations had little practical impact - the entire government leaves May 20 when President-elect Ma Ying-jeou is inaugurated - they underscore the depth of the scandal, the most severe during President Chen Shui-bian's eight years in office.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military mistakenly shipped parts from a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile to Taiwan, Pentagon officials announced yesterday. Top Pentagon officials said the material sent to Taiwan consisted of four electrical fuses for the ICBM nose cone. The fuses, used to trigger nuclear weapons, do not contain nuclear material. But experts on nuclear security said the mistaken transfer showed a serious deterioration in the safeguards and controls that the U.S. military has over its nuclear warheads.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Yesterday, Taiwan elected its first president who had campaigned for closer economic relations with Beijing, paving the way for a considerable lessening of tensions in one of Asia's oldest flash points. Ma Ying-jeou, a Harvard-educated lawyer and former Taipei mayor from the Nationalist Party, won by a convincing margin. He prevailed despite a last-minute effort by his opponent, Frank Hsieh of the Democratic Progressive Party, to caution voters that the Chinese crackdown in Tibet was a warning of what could also happen to Taiwan if it did not stand up to Beijing.

Gemini -- Howard Community College will present the Gemini Piano Trio Taiwan Tour Concert, a faculty performance with pianist Hsiu-Hui Wang, violinist Sheng-Tsung Wang and cellist Benjamin Myers, at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Monteabaro Recital Hall in the college's Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. Works by Beethoven, Piazzolla, Dvorak and Taiwanese composers will be performed. Admission is $15; $10 for senior citizens. HCC faculty, staff and students pay $5. The Gemini Piano Trio will tour Taiwan early next month.