Taipei - Taiwan's stocks were sharply higher in early trading Monday, rising more than 5 per cent after the seizure by the US government of the two largest US mortgage lenders and guarantors and on a string of measures planned by the local financial regulator to support the market.

The Weighted Price Index of the Taiwan Stock Exchange, which opened 4 per cent higher, continued its upward trend, rising 340 points, or 5.4 per cent, to 6,647 by mid-morning.

Dealers said the US and Taiwan measures bolstered investor confidence, resulting in heavy buying.

Taipei - Taiwan had a bumper year in frozen duck exports in 2007, as it was the only country in Southeast Asia spared by bird flu, the Central News Agency (CNA) said Saturday.

Quoting Council of Agriculture (COA) figures, it said Taiwan held on to its traditional frozen duck export markets and opened some new.

Taiwan in 2007 raised 11 million ducks with production value of six billion Taiwan dollars (about 193 million US dollars), out of which, revenues from export totaled 800 million dollars (26 million US.)

Taipei- A Taiwan man who drove two nails into his forehead is recovering from the wounds, but faces charges of defamation for accusing his "mainland Chinese wife" of attempting to murder him, a media report said Saturday.

On August 15, Lin Shang-mian, 71, a retired man in Pingtung City, was rushed to hospital with a 6-centimetre nail and a 5-centimetre screw lodged in his forehead, cable TV channel TVBS reported.

Taipei- A Singaporean businessman was indicted Friday on charges of embezzling 3 million US dollars from a diplomatic fund set up to persuade Papua New Guinea (PNG) to drop its links with China and recognize Taipei.

The Taipei Prosecutor's Office indicted Wu Shih-tsai, who was in charge of the fund, on charges of forging documents and defamation.

Taipei - Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves dropped slightly to 282.09 billion US dollars at the end of August from the preceding month, the central bank said in a statement on Friday.

The 3 per cent month-on-month decline was a decrease of 8.81 billion US dollars compared with that of July, but an increase of 11.78 billion US dollars over the same period last year, the bank said.