Manila  - Four people, including two soldiers, were killed and two were injured in a road collision in the northern Philippines, a police report said.

The accident occurred late Tuesday when a sports utility vehicle collided head-on with a military truck in Porac town in Pampanga province, 80 kilometres north of Manila.

Two soldiers aboard the military truck and two passengers in the sports utility vehicle were killed in the smash-up.

Taipei  - Taiwan former president Chen Shui-bian has written a poem to lament his detention on corruption allegations and say he would die for Taiwan's independence, a newspaper said Wednesday.

In the poem "To My Wife," published by the Liberty Times, Chen compared the Taipei Penitentiary, where he is being held, to the Bastille, the Paris prison whose storming in 1789 is considered the beginning of the French Revolution:

Hong Kong  - A peeping Tom who fell 10 floors from the window ledge of a high-rise apartment block while filming a woman in a shower has been spared a jail term, a news report said Wednesday.

Fong Chi-hung, 44, appeared in court heavily bandaged, in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace Tuesday, five months after being critically injured in the fall, the South China Morning Post reported.

He had been perched on a window ledge and was using his mobile phone to film the 28-year-old woman when she spotted him and shouted for her husband.

Munich  - BMW engineers are working on a new car key with an integrated credit card chip for simple pay functions at the filling station or shopping centre, according to BMW researcher Hans-Joerg Voegel.

The chip is designed to communicate with a card reader and the customer only has to place his/her car key on the counter and leaving behind a signature.

But, according to Voegel, engineers are looking at incorporating other personal data such as favourite radio stations, a telephone directory or subscriptions to BMW's Online platform "Connected Drive."

Bottrop, Germany  - The German tuning specialist Brabus has given the Tesla electric roadster special treatment with white paintwork, new alloys and a sound generator that simulates engine noise from a V8 to a Formula 1 racing car.

Normally focused on the tune-up of Mercedes and Smart cars, Brabus is planning to unveil its first zero-emission project at the upcoming Essen Motor Show starting on November 29 to December 7.

Ingolstadt, Germany  - Audi is planning to revive its microcar the A2 as a sport model with a high roof to round off the compact A1 and A3 model segments, the German auto magazine Auto Bild reports.

A Sportback version with a longer rear is also being planned for 2014, the magazine said.

An Audi spokesman declined to comment on the Bild report, but Audi CEO Rupert Stadler said earlier: "We are looking at different scenarios including a new A2."