Today's Story Line

Taiwan's new leader is the product of a robust new democracy. Chen Shui-bian's win Saturday marks the first major power change on the island in five decades. China threatened war if he won, but Mr. Chen is offering an olive branch.

Two world leaders will be on the road this week. President Bill Clinton begins a largely symbolic visit to the Indian subcontinent . And Pope John Paul II starts his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The papal visit is meant as a personal quest, but politics and religion are inseparable in this part of the globe .

David Clark Scott World editor

Reporters on the job

*DOTCOM JOURNOS: When Sydney-based reporter Shawn Donnan was visiting New York last August, a lot of his journalist friends had left their traditional media jobs to join Internet start-ups. "It made me feel incredibly left out. My last few days there I was actually scanning the newspapers (a mistake - all the good jobs are listed on the Web) to see if there was a Net job I could do," says Shawn. But it turns out the Net jobs are coming to Australia. He ran into a fellow freelancer in Sydney who is now working for an Internet start-up. "The funny thing: His specialty is writing about commodities, which is what used to make the front pages in Australia but just doesn't seem to anymore," says Shawn.

FOLLOW-UP ON A MONITOR STORY..

*BAIKONUR, WE HAVE A PROBLEM: Russian actor Vladimir Steklov won't be going to Mir any time soon. As reported Feb. 23, Mr. Steklov was supposed to blast off for the Russian space station next month to portray a renegade in a movie about cosmonaut who won't leave the station.

But Russian space officials told Associated Press that the movie's producers haven't come up with enough money for his training, let alone the multimillion-dollar flight. Real life cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri are scheduled to lift off for Mir on April 4. The station has been unmanned since August.

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