Kyodo news summary -2-

Asian Political News, April 18, 2005

TOKYO, April 17 Kyodo

---------- Anti-Japan protesters pelt consulate Shenyang

BEIJING - A group estimated at about 200 people pelted the Japanese Consulate building in China's Shenyang with plastic bottles, eggs and other objects Sunday morning, a consular official said from the city in northeastern China.

Those seen throwing the objects apparently arrived near the consulate in carloads from a single work unit, but were stopped about 30 meters from the building by two columns of armed police.

---------- 2,000 Chinese workers at Japanese-run factory rally for pay hikes

TOKYO - About 2,000 Chinese workers at a factory of Taiyo Yuden Co. in Guangdong Province held a rally inside the factory's premises Saturday morning to seek pay hikes, a spokesman of the Japanese electronic parts maker said.

---------- Taiwan opposition leader Lien Chan visits Singapore

SINGAPORE - The leader of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, Lien Chan, is in Singapore on a private visit at the invitation of a state-run think tank named after Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew, a Singapore government official said Sunday.

Lien, a former Taiwan vice president and now chairman of the KMT, ''is on a private and unofficial visit to Singapore at the invitation of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,'' a spokesman from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts told Kyodo News, but no further details were available.