Taipei - President Alvaro Colom

Taipei - Taiwan stocks rose nearly six per cent in mid- morning trading Friday, boosted by Wall Street gains and an across- the-board rebound on major Asian stock markets.

One hour into trading, the TAIEX index surged 318.28 points, or 5.64 per cent, to 5,960.23 points.

Taipei - Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Co and Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) will jointly launch a second joint communications satellite in 2010, Chunghwa Telecom said on Thursday.

The two firms have agreed to form a joint venture to build the ST- 2 satellite and launch it in the fourth quarter of 2010. ST-2 will replace the ST-1, Chunghwa Telecom said in a statement.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks plunged 2.73 per cent Thursday amid heavy
selling triggered by US financial turmoil and Wall Street's sharp fall
overnight, dealers said.

The Weighted Price Index of Taiwan Stock Exchange opened down 4.19
per cent as jittery investors dumped their holdings, but government
funds soon moved in to buy heavily to ease the sliding trend, allowing
the index to close at 5,641.95 points, down 158.92 points, or 2.73 per
cent, dealers said.

In mid-morning amid heavy sell-offs, Finance Minister Lee Sush-der

Taipei - Taiwan expressed regret Thursday for its failure to gain membership in United Nations agencies at the current UN General Assembly but vowed to continue the fight next year.

China - which has veto power on the Security Council, the UN's highest decision-making body - has long opposed Taiwan membership in international organizations.

"China's response was expected," Foreign Minister Francisco Ou said. "It takes a long time to win support from the international community. We now are focussing on joining the World Health Organization and are cautiously optimistic about it."

Taipei - Taiwan, putting aside long-standing political considerations, said Wednesday that it is adopting China's phonetic spelling system to prevent confusion in communications with foreigners.

The cabinet said Taiwan's local and county governments must use China's Hanyu Pinyin when translating place names and road names from Chinese into Roman alphabets.

Those who refuse to follow the order would not receive subsidies for transliterating place names from the central government.

"Hanyu Pinyin is being used by the United Nations and world libraries," Education Ministry official Chen Hsueh-yu said. "Adopting it can make it easier for foreigners to do business or travel in Taiwan."