On the touchiest political issue in health care, employer insurance payments, Mr. Clinton would require all employers to pay the bulk of their workers' health insurance premiums.

Walkers have always been one of the touchiest issues on Broadway, the first example producers cite when they gripe - as they frequently do - that unions are strangling them.

When American occupation forces will leave Iraq is one of the touchiest political issues.

The touchiest issue is a Government effort to promote teachers only after they have completed 16 years as lecturers.

By no coincidence, the two touchiest issues are the people's feudal rights - cheap food and guaranteed employment.

Yet the steel industry does not matter as much to the economy as it did 20 years ago, when big steel's decline became one of Washington's touchiest political issues.

Perhaps more important, the price change has put a spotlight on what is perhaps the touchiest issue in the egg donation process: are the eggs a gift or a free-market commodity?

But one concerned one of the touchiest issues in the case: the time and energy that went into the investigation and prosecution.

And he has remained vague about what is politically the touchiest issue involved: what kind of protection, if any, the cigarette manufacturers should be given against lawsuits based on smoking-related illness.

In the interview, Mr. Chen said the referendum would not involve independence, the touchiest issue from the perspective of mainland China.