Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou Friday urged the public to support the signing of an economic cooperation pact with China before it is too late.

"If we don't do it today, we will regret it tomorrow," he said in an interview with local cable news network ERA TV.

He said Taiwan would stand to lose 114,000 jobs after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN countries set up a free trade zone with China, Japan and South Korea as early as 2010.

Taipei - Taiwan's cabinet has approved a draft bill to allow email recipients to make claims of up to 2,000 Taiwan dollars (57 US dollars) per mail in compensation from the senders of spam email, the Government Information Office said Friday.

The bill, which still needs parliament approval, requires the senders to stop sending commercial email to recipients if their first mail does not get a response, the agency said in a statement.

Taipei - China's Shanghai Museum will offer two enamel porcelains from the era of Emperor Yongzheng (1678-1735) of the Qing Dynasty to Taiwan, the museum curator said in Taipei Thursday.

"We plan to send two enamel ceramics with colored paintings from Yongzheng era for an exhibition in Taipei in October," said Chen Xiejun, curator of the Shanghai museum.

Taipei's National Palace Museum asked its mainland counterpart, the Palace Museum in Beijing, to loan it 29 pieces of scroll paintings and official documents of the Yongzheng period for exhibition in October.

Taipei- Taiwan's seasonally adjusted jobless rate skyrocketed to 5.33 per cent in January, as sharply reduced global demand seriously battered the local manufacturing industry, a government agency said Thursday.

Some 578,000 Taiwanese were officially classified as out of work, 29,000 more than in December, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a press statement.

The grim unemployment condition in January came after Taiwan's jobless rate surged past the 5 per cent level in December to a seasonally adjusted 5.01 per cent, the agency said.

Taipei  - A Taiwanese man was arrested in the robbery of 5,000 Taiwan dollars (143 US dollars) from a computer engineer after leaving his phone number with his victim to demand more money later, local television reports said Wednesday.

The engineer was collecting money at a cash machine in the central county of Taichung Tuesday night when the man threatened him with a knife and robbed him, the cable news network ETTV said.

Taipei  - Taiwan posted yet another record slump of 41.67 per cent in export orders in January, as deteriorating global economic conditions further eroded overseas demands, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Tuesday.

In January, the island received orders worth just 17.68 billion US dollars, down 41.67 per cent year-on-year, following a 33-per-cent decline in December, the ministry said in a statement.

Among Taiwan's export markets, orders from China and Hong Kong - Taiwan's top export destinations - fell a record 54.71 per cent year-on-year to 3.66 billion US dollars.