Taipei - A Taiwan man, whose tongue was bitten off by the women he tried to rape, has been sentenced to six years in prison, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Lee Tang-hsiang, 35, attacked the woman in 2008 in Chiayi City in central Taiwan and was sentenced on Friday in Chiayi District Court on a conviction for attempted rape, the Apple Daily said.

On October 17, Lee was riding his motorbike about 4 am in Chiayi when he saw the woman on a motor-ped. Lee, whose criminal record includes previous sex crimes and drug use, rode alongside the victim, pulled her blouse and skirt and eventually caused her to fall off her motorbike.

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).

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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.