Taipei - Taiwan hopes to upgrade its representation at the upcoming APEC summit by sending a former minister and parliament speaker Frederick F Chien to the meeting, press reports said Wednesday.

The United Daily Mews and Economic Daily News, quoting an unnamed official source, said Taiwan plans to send Chien to the 16th Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) summit to be held in Lima, Peru November 22-23.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks opened higher Wednesday after Tuesday's big Wall Street rally.

After the Taipei stock market opened at 9 am, the benchmark TAIEX quickly surged as much as 7 per cent higher. One hour into trading, TAIEX eased to 4,536.17, still up 136.2 points, or 3.1 per cent, from Tuesday's closing figure.

Analysts attributed the TAIEX surge to Tuesday's rally on Wall Street.

Taipei  - Taiwan stocks rebounded to post gains of nearly 1 per cent Tuesday, after a steep opening fall, as Asian stock markets rallied across the board.

The benchmark TAIEX index lost nearly 6 per cent in early morning trading, but recouped to post a 0.76 per cent increase by the close.

Analysts attributed the rebound to the rallies on major Asian markets, which followed heavy losses Monday.

"Yesterday Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said during his visit to Russia that China will help Hong Kong through the financial crisis, and South Korea raised its interest rates by 0.7 per cent," said Chiu Hsin-lin, vice chairman of the Industries Bank of Taiwan Securities.

Taipei  - A city councilman who allegedly incited a mob to attack a visiting Chinese official last week claimed Tuesday that he was beaten by gangsters linked to China.

"They punched me twice in the chest and demanded that I apologize to Zhang Mingqing or I would be killed," Wang Ting-yu, a city councilman of the southern city of Tainan, said in a news conference in Taipei.

He said he received a phone call from an acquaintance identified as Huang Ju-yi, who asked for a meeting in Taipei last Thursday. When he went to Huang's office, he was taken to another room where some 20 men who he said looked like gangsters surrounded him.

Taipei - A Taiwan woman, heart-broken over a broken-off love
affair, confined herself to her home for 30 years, a newspaper reported
Tuesday.

For the past 30 years, Ah Fang, 56, has never stepped out her home
in Tainan City, south Taiwan, and has been cared for by her mother, the
United Daily News (UDN) said.

But her mother is now bedridden after a car accident, so neighbours and relatives are taking food and clothes to Ah Fang now.

Thirty years ago, Ah Fang was a quiet young woman working in a wood
barrel factory and fell in love with a colleague at the factory. UDN
did not report the reason for the break-up, but it left a deep
psychological scar on Ah Fang with her refusing to leave her home ever
since.

Taipei - Taiwan and China agreed Monday to hold a second round of high-level talks in Taipei next week, despite threats by pro-independence activists to disrupt the meeting.

"The Chinese mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) chairman Chen Yunlin will lead a delegation to Taiwan from December 3 to 7, the first meeting on the island between the two parties," the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.