International Roundup

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was angered this week by China’s decision to require foreign passport holders born in Taiwan or Hong Kong to put “China” as their birthplace when applying for Chinese visas.

Emotions ran high after a report by the Central News Agency (CNA) earlier in the week stated that China had already initiated the action. The report said China considers people who cite their birthplace as “Taipei, Taiwan, or Hong Kong” are implying that Taiwan and Hong Kong are sovereign states, which would violate its “one China” principle.

The Ministry called for Beijing to end this action because it might affect overseas Taiwanese traveling on foreign passports. The Ministry views the action as a way to try to downgrade the status of Taiwan to a province of China.

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Sean O’Muireagain, a Northern Ireland man, was allowed to return home to Belfast after being held in Israel for questioning about his alleged bomb making. While the journalist said he had never been in the IRA or part of the republican movement, he was arrested last Saturday by Israeli security forces reportedly acting on information from UK security services.

O’Muireagain, who went to the West Bank to promote a cultural exchange project, said he was strip searched in the street after Israeli police stopped him outside Ramallah. He was then handcuffed and taken to a concrete cell where police kept the light on 24 hours a day. The Editor of an Irish language newspaper underwent a lie detector test and was asked about his Palestinian links through the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity group. He believes that the interrogators gained personal information about him through UK intelligence services.

The security officials may have been trying to detain the other John Morgan, a name that O’Muireagain is often called.

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Liberian president Charles Taylor addressed thousands of Liberian refugees huddled last week in a rundown sports stadium to say that he would remain in office until international troops arrive. The indicted war criminal also told the crowd, many of whom are seeking shelter from the latest round of fighting, that he will no longer fight.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he expects Taylor to step down and accept asylum in Nigeria. He said that all parties have agreed that West Africa will send up to 1,500 troops to Liberia within two weeks. After their arrival, Taylor will leave and American and other reinforcements would join the West Africans, with a U.N. peacekeeping force taking over in the long term.

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Uganda will deport a South Africa man who stowed away on a chartered plane for reporters covering U.S. President George Bush’s trip to Africa. Police will question him when he returns to South Africa to determine if he can be charged with any crimes. The man, Patrick Fello Litheko, claimed he was covering AIDS stories for an organization called the Gauteng Youth Development Project. He was detained after a White House aide notified Secret Service that he joined reporters traveling with Bush.