Today's Story Line

Taiwan's president may be playing the independence card in an effort to prevent any mending of US-China relations. Beijing is again threatening to invade the island if it attempts to formally secede. Would the US ride to Taiwan's rescue ?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's whistle-stop peace train pulls into Washington today . Optimism abounds but his positions are ominously close to those of his predecessor.

Peace process land mines are one thing, but in Kosovo, they're just beginning to locate the explosive ordnance left behind.

- David Clark Scott, World editor

REPORTERS ON THE JOB

* NOT A CARD-CARRYING FRENCHMAN: The Monitor's Peter Ford was invited to the Elyse Palace (France's White House) for a Bastille Day garden party yesterday. But the invitation alone wasn't enough to gain entry. He also needed to bring his national identity card, a document that Peter, who has dual French and British citizenship, is having trouble obtaining. In this case, his British passport was an acceptable substitute.

WHAT SAY?

* HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE 'KOSOVO'? It depends on who you ask. Serbian linguists say it's KOH-soh-voh. But in Albanian, a language with different roots, the second syllable is stressed and -ovo becomes -ova. Albanians call the province Koh-SOH-vah. Correspondent Lucian Kim has found the distinction politically important. But both Serbians and Albanians he's interviewed pronounce the first syllable as Kah, rather than Koh.

CULTURAL SNAPSHOT

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