Taipei - Taiwan plans to reopen its domestic Taipei Airport for international flights, eyeing Haneda Airport in Tokyo as the first possible target in a bid to promote tourism, aviation officials said Thursday.

"Relevant agencies from Taiwan and Japan will hold talks next month in Tokyo for the revision of the Taiwan-Japan aviation agreement, during which we will propose that the two sides launch flights between Taipei and Haneda airports," said a senior official with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).

Taipei - Two giant pandas sent as a goodwill gift to Taiwan from China will make their debut at Taipei Zoo on the first day of the Chinese New Year, which falls on January 26, a spokesman said Thursday.

"The month-long quarantine for the pair at the Taipei Zoo will end on January 23 and we plan to formally introduce them to the public on January 26," said Yang Hsiao-tung, spokesman for the Taipei City Government.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks plunged almost five per cent in mid-session Thursday due to the worsening global recession and a decline in the island nation's December exports.

By 12:19 pm, the TAIEX index had fallen 234.42 points, or 4.89 per cent, to 4,555.42.

Analysts blamed the fall on the continued global recession, a drop in oil prices, the overnight fall of US stocks and a record 41.9 per cent slump in Taiwan's December exports.

Taipei - Taiwan's central bank Wednesday announced a benchmark interest rate cut of 50 basis points following a sharp decline of the island's total exports in December.

"Effective from Thursday, the benchmark interest rate would be lowered to 1.5 per cent from 2 per cent," the central bank said in a press release after an unscheduled board meeting.

It stressed the cut was to reflect the sharp decline in the island's total exports, which slumped by 42 per cent in December at 13.64 billion US dollars, due to the global economic recession.

Taipei - A Taiwan man, fearing deportation of his Indonesian wife, hid her and their three children at home for seven years, an immigration official and a local news report said Wednesday.

Local authorities in Puli, central Taiwan, uncovered the secret of Liu Fan-jung, 43, a noodle maker, in August 2008.

Liu met his wife, an Indonesian of Chinese descent identified by her surname Chen, 14 years ago when she was visiting on a tourist visa, but overstayed to work illegally in Taiwan, the United Daily News said.

Liu and Chen met, fell in love and got married, but did not register with authorities, fearing she would be deported, which would put her on a blacklist, preventing her return for three years.

Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou Tuesday said his government still needs time to digest the content of a goodwill speech on cross-strait relations recently made by his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

"We are still making further efforts to try to understand what exactly (Hu) wanted to convey through his speech," said Ma in a meeting with a group of visiting US scholars.

Through a press statement, he said the Chinese leader "had in certain aspect made concrete responses to some of Taiwan's concerns." Ma did not elaborate.