Taipei  - Taoyuan International Airport, Taiwan's largest, is losing its competitiveness in both passenger and cargo volume, a government report said Saturday.

According to the Transport Ministry report carried by Taiwan's Central News Agency, Taoyuan was number 15 in the world in cargo volume in 2007, down two places from 2006.

In Asia-Pacific alone, the airport was ranked number six for cargo, the same as 2006.

As for passenger volume in the Asia-Pacific, Taoyuan ranked 14 in 2007, down one place from 2006.

If the harassment at the airport with a series of checks was not enough the European Commission Regulation has asked all European Union airports to use virtual digital scanners by 2010. This scanner is a virtual strip search machines, which creates a 3D image of a naked body. Such a scanner has been opposed as it is next to a strip search. 

San Francisco - About 70 searchers combed the area around the crash site of adventurer Steve Fossett's plane Friday as scientists were due to test a small piece of bone found near the plane.

The small bone, said by police to be about 5 centimetres by 3 centimetres was the only sign of possible human remains at the remote site. But it was far from clear that it was even human.

Madrid - The technician who fixed a technical problem on a passenger plane that crashed on August 20 did not comply with the instructions of plane maker Boeing because the Spanish airline had not included them in its handbook, the daily El Mundo reported Friday.

The Spanair MD-82 crashed at Madrid airport after take-off, killing 154 and injuring 18 people. The plane was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.

Before the flight, a technician inspected a temperature gauge that had broken down five times in 48 hours, according to El Mundo.

San Francisco - The enigma of the disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett moved closer to resolution Thursday as federal transportation officials were set to examine the wreckage of a light plane found near the site where objects apparently belonging to Fossett were discovered earlier in the week.

Searchers discovered the wreckage late Wednesday evening in a rugged wooded area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after fanning out in a 15-kilometre radius from where hikers discovered ID cards, clothes and some 1,000 dollars in cash that appeared to belong to Fossett, authorities said.

Taipei - A Boeing 747-400 jetliner of Taiwan's major carrier China Airlines was hit by severe air turbulence on its way from Hong Kong to Bangkok Thursday, resulting in the injury of 21 people, the airlines said.

"Flight CI 641 arrived in Bangkok safely, and the injured, including, 5 crew members and 16 passengers, received hospital treatment," the airlines said in a news statement.

A total of 147 passengers and 18 crew members were on board the plane when the turbulence occurred without warning over Thai airspace, the airline said.