英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Premier Wu Den-yih called on the Kuomintang to return to political issues Friday, while the Democratic Progressive Party condemned the government for abusing the judiciary in its campaign against presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen.

On the day he officially took leave to devote himself fulltime to his bid as vice-presidential candidate in the January 14 election, Wu said that his poll performance had only improved by 2 percent after the Yu Chang case came to the fore, but that half the public believed the allegations against Tsai and half did not.

The KMT has alleged that Tsai approved government investment in Yu Chang Biologics Co. when she was vice premier in early 2007 with the full knowledge that she would leave the Cabinet and chair the company later in the year. Tsai has denied the allegations, saying she did not manage the government investment and was only invited to chair Yu Chang by prominent scientists after she left the Cabinet.

Wu said Friday that the topic should not take center stage in the election campaign, but that the KMT should return to defending the government’s performance in office.

The DPP accused the ruling party of using a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, top party leaders like Wu called for a truce, but KMT lawmakers kept holding news conferences to launch accusations against Tsai, the opposition party said. KMTlegislators said they would continue to demand explanations from Tsai as long as their leadership didn’t order them to stop.

The ruling party was damaging the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and accusing Taiwan’s top biotechnology experts of being opposition supporters, DPP legislator Tsai Huang-liang said.

On Thursday, the DPP presented the recording of one of the founders of Yu Chang, scientist Chen Lan-bo, saying Tsai at first had never been considered as a candidate for company chairman.

He said Taiwanese people should be angry about the allegations and stand up to protest. The accusations against Tsai were completely unfair, he said.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – President Ma Ying-jeou is only 1 percent ahead of Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen in an opinion poll published by the Chinese-language Liberty Times Friday. The difference is within the poll’s 2.56 percent margin of error.

Less than a month before the January 14 presidential and legislative elections, Ma received 34.5 percent to Tsai’s 33.26 percent, according to the survey. People First Party Chairman James Soong was a distant third at 10.81 percent.

Over the past three months, the parties exchanged fire over issues ranging from Ma’s proposal for a peace accord with China, the right level of pension stipends for farmers and allegations of corruption and illegality against Tsai and her running mate, Su Jia-chyuan.

The six opinion polls conducted by the Liberty Times over those three months show the leadership position changing hands between Ma and Tsai several times, but neither of the candidates succeeded in building a strong lead, the paper said.

The poll found 21.43 percent of voters who had not made up their mind yet.

Looking at young voters, the survey saw Tsai holding a strong lead of 32.76 percent against 25.29 percent for Ma for the age group from 20 to 29. Voters from 30 to 39 gave Tsai an even more pronounced 13-percent lead over Ma, according to the Liberty Times.

Tsai was also catching up with Ma in the traditional Kuomintang strongholds of Northern Taiwan, the paper said. She was only 1.83 percent behind the incumbent in New Taipei City.

The poll was conducted by phone from December 13 through 15, interviewing a total of 1,461 people of voting age.

Hopes or fears that a live televised debate between the three contenders on December 3 would provide a clear winner failed to materialize. Their running mates debated on December 10, while the main candidates will have a final opportunity for direct confrontation on Saturday.

The KMT said most polls showed it had achieved a stable lead, while the DPP said the situation was still at a stalemate, with a fifty-fifty chance of winning for both Tsai and Ma. A PFP spokesman said the showings in the Liberty Times poll were too far from the party’s own survey results.

India's central bank held key interest rates steady Friday as it struggles to foster growth amid high inflation, disappointing businesses who were looking for more drastic action.

The Reserve Bank of India kept the short-term lending rate, or repo rate, at 8.5 percent and the reverse repo rate _ the rate it pays to banks for deposits, at 7.5 percent. The bank also kept the cash reserve ratio for commercial lenders unchanged.

"Downside risks to growth have clearly increased," the bank said in a statement. "However, it must be emphasized that inflation risks remain high."

The bank's 13 rate hikes since March 2010 are starting to choke growth in Asia's third largest economy. Growth slipped to a two year low of 6.9 percent in the September quarter and industrial production fell 5.1 percent in October, its first contraction since June 2009. But inflation remains above 9 percent.

"I would like to see RBI do a major rate cut now," B. Muthuraman, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry and vice chairman of Tata Steel, told CNBC-TV18 before the policy decision.

He said he would have liked the bank to cut rates by half a percentage point and reduce the cash reserve ratio to boost lending. That would help small and medium sized businesses _ which are crucial to jobs and output in India's manufacturing sector _ get more affordable financing to grow.

"Government inaction is a big cause of concern for industry," Muthuraman said, citing coal shortages, land acquisition difficulties and slow decision making. "We can have a growth rate in excess of 8 percent, if only we'd had reforms. It's a very sad story."

The rupee, which has been trading at record lows, strengthened Friday, after the central bank took to steps to curb speculation.

ormer French President Jacques Chirac was found guilty by a French criminal court of misusing Paris city funds during his years as mayor.

Chirac, 79, was found guilty of all three charges against him related to diverting city money to benefit his political party and reward supporters, the court ruled Thursday.

He received a two-year suspended prison sentence, meaning he won’t be jailed unless he commits further offenses.

The mayor of Paris from 1977 until 1995, except for a two-year period when he was prime minister, Chirac is the first French head of state to stand trial since World War II.

The corruption investigation was delayed until after he stepped down as president in 2007 by rules shielding sitting leaders from investigations for anything expect treason.

>>The Biggest Lie<<

The teacher says, "Why are you arguing?"

One boy answers, "We found a ten dollar bill and decided to give it to whoever tells the biggest lie."

"You should be ashamed of yourselves," said the teacher, "When I was your age I didn't even know what a lie was."

The boys gave the ten dollars to the teacher.