October 26, 2004 - 2:00 PM

Food fight in Taiwan's parliament

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A food fight has erupted in Taiwan's parliament as lawmakers, quarrelling over a massive arms budget, hurled their lunch
boxes at each other.

"You've got no shame!" screamed Chu Fong-chih of the opposition Nationalist Party, after throwing a take-out box of chicken and rice at
Chen Tsung-yi, a legislator from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party who backed the special budget.

Chen responded by accusing Chu of sympathising with Taiwan's arch-foe China, and flung his own lunch box at her.

Taiwan's parliament is notorious for fistfights, with many lawmakers enjoying the media attention when scuffles break out. Chairs and shoes
have also been known to fly across the chamber on occasion.

Legislators were meeting on Tuesday to decide if a proposed T$610.8 billion (9.9 billion pound) budget to buy weapons from the United
States should be put on the legislative agenda for Friday.

The budget would pay for six Patriot anti-missile batteries, eight diesel-electric submarines and 12 submarine-hunting aircraft from the
United States, which would be the biggest arms deal for Taiwan in more than a decade.

The state-funded Central News Agency said the bill was not put on the agenda in the end -- bad news for the ruling party, which is trying to
get the budget approved before parliament closes shop for the year in less than 3 weeks.

The ruling party says the weapons are necessary for defences against China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and threatens
to invade if it declares formal independence.