Taipei - Taiwan's parliament Monday adopted a resolution insisting that a proposed trade pact with China be apolitical and not sacrifice the island's economic sovereignty. Opposition and ruling party parliamentarians agreed that if Taiwan were to sign a trade agreement with China, it must not include political terms, parliament officials said.

Taipei - German wind-power firm InfraVest GmbH on Monday threatened to quit Taiwan over what it claims is Taipei's reluctance to promote renewable power. InfraVest chairman Karl-Eugen Feifel told a news conference that unless Taiwan improves conditions for developing renewable power, InfraVest may quit Taiwan and consider looking for another country.

He complained that Taiwan's parliament had not adopted a bill on promoting renewable energy and the Taiwan Power Co's purchase price for InfraVest's power is too low.

Taipei - Taiwan police on Sunday arrested a man for throwing banknotes from a taxi on the highway. Chen Ping-teng, 43, was arrested after he tossed 1,000 Taiwan dollar
(30 US dollar) bills from the window of a taxi on a highway in central Taiwan.

The taxi driver, suspecting Chen was the same man who threw money from a taxi on the highway Tuesday, causing traffic jams and triggering a police probe, drove Chen to a police station and handed him over to police.

Taipei - Two Taiwan naval personnel have been arrested for armed robbery which left one Vietnamese prostitute dead and another injured, Taiwan press said Saturday. Tseng Shao-tzu and Liang Poh-yu, both 20, committed the armed burglary and murder Friday in Kaohsiung City, south Taiwan, near the Tsoying Naval Base.

They face a court martial and the death penalty, if found guilty, several newspapers reported.

Taipei - Taiwan confirmed Friday that US ratings agency Moody's plans to quit the country in order to focus on larger Asian markets, a move seen by some as a warning sign for the island. According to the Central News Agency (CNA), Moody's - which has operated in Taipei for six years - has notified Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) of its plan to leave Taiwan by the end of June as part of its re-structuring in Asia.

FSC will approve Moody's withdrawal after making sure that the interests of Moody's local clients have been protected, CNA said.

Taipei - Taiwan and China were expected to hold their third round of talks before May in the Chinese city of Nanjing on further economic cooperation, a senior official said Friday. "If the preliminary talks go smoothly, the third-round talks will be held even earlier than the beginning of May as some local news media have reported," said Kao Koong-lian, vice chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, which represents Taiwan with China in the absence of formal relations.