Taipei - Typhoon Jangmi lashed Taiwan with powerful winds and torrential rains Sunday, forcing a standstill in domestic air traffic and some railway services.

The typhoon packed center winds of up to 184 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 227 kilometres per hour, making landfall in the north-eastern county of Ilan in the afternoon, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The bureau said the typhoon was expected to dump up to 1,400 millimetres of rain on the island.

Local authorities moved more than 1,000 residents after the Council of Agriculture issued a warning for 247 areas likely to be threatened by mud- and rock-slides, officials said.

Taipei - Taipei on Saturday held Asia's largest gay pride march to demand equal rights for homosexuals, transsexuals and transgender people.

Braving showers brought on by Typhoon Jangmi, an estimated 18,000 people - including representatives from gay rights groups in foreign countries - marched through the main streets of Taipei.

The marchers displayed a 90-by-4.5-metre rainbow flag - the symbol of the gay rights movement - and waved placards to call for equal rights for gay people.

Wang Ping, organizer of the march, which is in its ninth year, said the turn-out was bigger than 2007.

Taipei - Taiwan braced for Typhoon Jangmi Saturday as the storm approached southern Taiwan from the Pacific Ocean, packing winds as high as 227 kilometres per hour.

After issuing a sea warning for Jangmi Friday night, the Central Weather Bureau issued a land warning Saturday, a day before it predicted the storm would brush the island before making landfall in China.

It warned that Jangmi, which means rose in Korean, would bring strong winds and heavy rain to south-eastern and eastern Taiwan over the weekend.

Taipei - Taiwan on Friday night issued a sea warning for Typhoon Jangmi, which

Taipei  - China has approved Taiwan's request to send a delegation to investigate its tainted milk products and exports to Taiwan, officials said Thursday.

The team of health experts are ready to leave for Beijing on Sunday, they said.

The latest development came as Taiwan's Health Minister Lin Fang-yue resigned to take responsibility over the public outcry over policy reversal by health authorities in dealing with the Chinese milk crisis.

Taipei - Taiwan's export orders in August rose nearly six per cent owing to increased orders for information products, the Economics Ministry said Tuesday.

Taiwan's August export orders totaled 32.1 billion US dollars, up 1.64 billion or 5.38 per cent, year on year.

The surge was led by a 12 per cent cent increase in orders for information products, especially new brands of notebook computers, as well as chemicals, the ministry said.

Orders for information products in August hit 750 million US dollars, up 12 per cent year on year, while orders for chemicals reached 350 million dollars, up 24.23 per cent year on year.