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Taiwan announced that it had developed about a thousand "computer viruses" for use against China should it come to war. The Defense Ministry announcement did not go into detail, but this probably means that the Taiwanese have developed a large number of programs for attacking Chinese networks and servers, as well as defending Taiwanese ones. "Virus: is a generic term, for net warfare uses many different types of programs. The Chinese and Taiwanese have been skirmishing in cyberspace for years, although the only evidence of this combat has been hacked web sites (at least the ones open to the public.) Other damage has probably been done, but no one is talking about it. Given the large numbers of skilled programmers and system engineers in both countries, a cyberwar between them would an interesting event, and possibly dangerous for many other nations as well. For many programs used to wreck enemy networks could easily get loose throughout the Internet.
January 7; 2000; The third highest ranking Tibetan religious leader, recognized by the Dali Lama and China, has fled to India and been welcomed by the Dali Lama (who fled the same way 40 years ago.) The 14 year old Karmapa Lama has been carefully nurtured by the Chinese since we was selected as a living Buddha as a child. But the Karmapa became increasingly disillusioned with Chinese rule, as have an increasing number of Tibetans. China has not retreated from its hostile attitude towards religious organizations, especially ones like Falungong or the Roman Catholic church, that they suspect of political activism.