School teachers in Taipei are unhappy that many of their pupils have flunked the test of Chinese administered by the municipal board of education.

There isn't any doubt that Taiwan is well prepared for Typhoon Parma, even though it may change course and spare the island anyway.

Former President Chen Shui-bian's spectral shadow over the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is eclipsing fast after he claimed he had ruled Taiwan for eight long years as an agent of the U.S. military government.

When asked what the issue was in a presidential campaign, Bill Clinton once said, “Stupid, it's the economy.” It was in the United States.

Lee Teng-hui was a capable president. But he made a few wrong policy decisions, one of them being the world's biggest BOT (build-operate-transfer) project: a high speed rail service like Japan's Shinkansen.

There was no separation of powers in imperial China. The emperor was the law-giver, supreme enforcer of laws and head of government.

Yukio Hatoyama, who will be sworn in as Japan's prime minister in a week or so, is reported to want to chart a new foreign policy that may be more pro-China than pro-America.

The Dalai Lama left for Dharamsala early yesterday morning after winding up a five-day prayer tour of Taiwan. It's a three-way tie for loss for him, the Democratic Progressive Party that invited him, and the government of President Ma Ying-jeou who agreed to make the tour possible.

Well, the Dalai Lama is here among us for the third time. He isn't as welcome as he was on his previous tours, for he came this time to serve the political purposes of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party.

Hamid Karzai is all set to continue to rule Afghanistan, which is fast turning into another Vietnam for the United States.