Taipei - Three Taiwanese have been sentenced by a local court for posing as religious masters and forcing a man to have sex with his three daughters, a newspaper said Saturday.

The three defendants - Chang Yao-ming, Chen Ming-tsun and Hsu Su- chun (female) - set up a sect several years ago in Pingtung County in south Taiwan, the Liberty Times said.

Calling their sect the "Save the World and True Life Religion," they posed as religious masters and claimed they had the power to cure illnesses.

In 2005, a local man sought help for his sick wife at the temple run by the trio, the paper said.

Taipei- Taiwan plans to launch regular flights with China in the first half of 2009, an official said Friday.

Lee Wen-lung, director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), told Broadcasting Corp of China that "authorities" have instructed CAA to achieve normalization of air flights across the Taiwan Strait before summer.

"Although the two sides have not opened talks, all the preparations have been made," the radio quoted Lee as saying.

Taipei  - Kaohsiung Harbour has lost its position among the world's top ten busiest container ports due to strong competition from Chinese ports, according to a newspaper report Friday.

Data from China's China Shipping Gazette weekly showed that in 2008, the world's top-ten busiest container ports were Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Pusan, Dubai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Zhoushan and Qingdao, the United Daily News reported.

Seven are Chinese ports and only three were outside China: Singapore, Pusan (South Korea) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates).

Taipei- Taiwan's

Taipei  - Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou has instructed the government to study the feasibility of building a 10-kilometre bridge between Taiwan's offshore island Kinmen and China's Fujian Province, a newspaper said on Thursday.

At a dinner party with government officials Wednesday, Ma showed keen interest in the Kinmen-Xiamen bridge, the United Daily News said.

Taipei- Taiwan on Wednesday rejected the Philippines' claim to the disputed Spratly Islands, and its plan to include the mineral- rich South China Sea archipelago within its own territorial waters.

"Historically, geographically and factually, the Spratly Islands and its surrounding waters have long been the traditional territory of the Republic of China, without doubt," said Taiwan's Foreign Ministry in a statement.