A FOOD VENDOR SELLS GOODS DURING BLACKOUT IN TAIPEI, 1999-07-29 (photo)

A food vendor, ignoring an islandwide power outage July 30, uses his own gas generator while selling midnight snacks on a Taipei street, where other businesses, including a 7-Eleven convenience store, have fallen dark. Taiwan suffered one of its worst blackouts in decades but authorities quickly discounted any connection to a tense sovereignty dispute with arch rival Communist China, which has assailed the island for abandoning its longtime "one China" policy and demanding that Beijing recognise its Nationalist Chinese government as a state in its own right. JKP/AA