Taipei - A Taiwanese baseball fan died of a heart attack as his side suffered what was widely considered a humiliating defeat to China in the Olympic baseball comptitition, it emerged Saturday.

The 74-year-old pensioner from Kaohsiung - identified only by his surname Huang - had been a baseball fan all his life and never missed a game on TV, the Central News Agency (CNA) said.

Taipei - Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian Friday quit the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as investigators were looking into alleged money laundering activities implicating him and his family.

"I have committed a serious mistake and I don't fancy for forgiveness from the public, but I absolutely take responsibility for my own behaviour," he said in a statement in announcing his withdrawal from the party.

Taipei - Taiwan said Friday it has changed tact in its United Nations membership bid by seeking to access special organizations of the global body instead.

"The motion raised by our allies this year is to urge the UN assembly to propose that its special organizations accept the meaningful participation of Taiwan and its 23 million people in their respective bodies and activities," said Vice Foreign Minister Hsia Li-yan in a news conference in Taipei.

Taipei - Taiwan should learn a lesson from the ongoing conflict in the Caucasus and beware of a similar situation with China, a Taiwanese political analyst said Friday.

"Georgia's tragedy is a warning for Taiwan. Georgia sees a Russia which wants to regain its past power. Taiwan sees a China which has already risen," political analyst Antonio Chiang said in his column in the Apple Daily.

"Every now and then, thug leaders pick out a weakling and knock his head against the wall, to remind others who is in charge," he wrote in an article entitled, A Small but Smart War.

Taipei  - Four Taiwan men involved in a car accident quit arguing about who was to blame after they discovered a numerology twist in their birthdates, a television channel reported Tuesday.

The four-car collision occurred Monday evening in a highway tunnel in Chiayi County, west Taiwan. No one was injured in the accident, but when the four men went to a police station to file a report, they saw their birthdates were June 6, July 7, August 8 and September 9, TVBS reported.

The succession of 6/6, 7/7, 8/8 and 9/9 was so unusual that the men forgot about assigning blame for the accident and began to marvel at the coincidence, the cable TV channel said.

Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, on his first overseas trip since taking offce on May 20, is to depart Tuesday afternoon to visit three Latin American countries.

Seeking to boost diplomatic ties for internationally isolated Taiwan, the main purpose of Ma's trip is to attend the inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo on Friday and the inauguration of Dominican President Leonel Fernandez Reyna for his third term in the Caribbean republic.

On his way from the US to Paraguay, Ma's chartered plane will make a refuelling stop in Panama, where and Ma and President Martin Torrijos will hold talks at a Panamanian airport.