Taipei - Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin, the highest level Chinese official to visit Taiwan in more than half a century, Thursday escaped a protest barricade that had pinned him down for six hours.

Chen was escorted under police protection from the Regent Hotel, where he had attended a banquet Wednesday evening only to find the building under siege by hundreds of anti-China protestors when he tried to leave.

Riot police were unable to disperse the protesters. He was finally escorted to safety at 2 am Thursday.

Taipei - Hundreds of anti-China protesters clashed with riot police Wednesday evening when the protesters tried to prevent Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin from leaving a Taipei hotel where he was attending a banquet.

The banquet at the Regent Hotel ended at 8:30 pm (1330 GMT), but the siege continued until after midnight, despite riot police's effort to disperse the protesters.

Taipei - Hundreds of anti-China protesters clashed with riot police Wednesday evening trying to prevent Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin from leaving a Taipei hotel where he was attending a banquet.

The protest by members and supporters of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began at about 4:30 pm (9:30 GMT) and continued until after dark around the Regent Hotel on the Chunghsan South Road.

Taipei - Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves dropped slightly to 278.15 billion US dollars at the end of October from the previous month, the island's central bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

The 2.98-billion-US-dollar, or 3-per-cent, month-on-month decrease was however an increase of 7.84 billion US dollars over the same period last year, the bank said.

Net foreign capital outflows, including net selling in the local stock market by foreign institutional investors to remit funds abroad, were the main factor for the decline, the bank said.

The bank has kept its foreign exchange reserves in the denominations of euros, US dollars, Japanese yen and other major currencies in various major overseas banks.

Taipei - A Taiwan food company will take over the island's largest newspaper group, the China Times Group, it was confirmed on Tuesday.

In a letter to the press, the China Times Group said the Want-Want Group has purchased the China Times for a price of 20.4 billion Taiwan dollars (600 million US dollars). The two sides have signed a memorandum of understanding.

"The Want-Want Group will carry on the spirit and values of the China Times Group and will perform social responsibilities," the statement said.

Taipei (Taiwan), Nov. 4 : The heads of the two main negotiating bodies of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan sat down together in Taipei on Tuesday morning for their first ever summit in Taiwan.

Chen Yunlin, president of the mainland''s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, and his island counterpart Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, met at the Grand Hotel in Taipei.