Taipei - Taiwan braced for Typhoon Jangmi Saturday as the storm approached southern Taiwan from the Pacific Ocean, packing winds as high as 227 kilometres per hour.

After issuing a sea warning for Jangmi Friday night, the Central Weather Bureau issued a land warning Saturday, a day before it predicted the storm would brush the island before making landfall in China.

It warned that Jangmi, which means rose in Korean, would bring strong winds and heavy rain to south-eastern and eastern Taiwan over the weekend.

Taipei - Taiwan on Friday night issued a sea warning for Typhoon Jangmi, which

Taipei  - China has approved Taiwan's request to send a delegation to investigate its tainted milk products and exports to Taiwan, officials said Thursday.

The team of health experts are ready to leave for Beijing on Sunday, they said.

The latest development came as Taiwan's Health Minister Lin Fang-yue resigned to take responsibility over the public outcry over policy reversal by health authorities in dealing with the Chinese milk crisis.

Taipei - Taiwan's export orders in August rose nearly six per cent owing to increased orders for information products, the Economics Ministry said Tuesday.

Taiwan's August export orders totaled 32.1 billion US dollars, up 1.64 billion or 5.38 per cent, year on year.

The surge was led by a 12 per cent cent increase in orders for information products, especially new brands of notebook computers, as well as chemicals, the ministry said.

Orders for information products in August hit 750 million US dollars, up 12 per cent year on year, while orders for chemicals reached 350 million dollars, up 24.23 per cent year on year.

Taipei - Typhoon Hagupit skirted Taiwan Tuesday on its way to China.

After leaving at least one dead and three people missing in the Philippines, the eye of Hagupit churned into the Bashih Strait separating Taiwan and the Philippines. It brought strong winds and heavy rain across Taiwan but no damage or injuries were reported.

The Central Weather Bureau lifted the land warning for Hagupit early Tuesday as the storm was heading toward China's Guangong coast - the area between Hong Kong and the Hainan Island.

By 5:30 am Tuesday (2130 GMT Monday), the centre of Hagupit was 360 kilometres south-west of Taiwan's southern tip Erlunpi, and the typhoon circle, with a radius of 280 km, had already entered the South China Sea.

Taipei - A Taiwan-based Chinese dissident, angry that the Taiwan government has not granted him permanent asylum, on Monday asked Taipei to send him back to China.

Cai Lujun, 40, said he made the request because he can no longer endure the "endless wait" for asylum and the humiliation of living like a "half-ghost, half-human being" in Taiwan.

He said he is not afraid of imprisonment in China for defecting to Taiwan, because it is better being jailed in China than begging for food and waiting indefinitely for asylum in Taiwan, he said in a statement.