Taipei  - Taiwan prosecutors on Tuesday requested that former president Chen Shui-bian be detained over embezzlement allegations, according to TV reports.

The Supreme Prosecutor's Office made the request to the Taipei District Court after questioning Chen for seven hours over his alleged embezzlement of government funds and money laundering during his 2000-2008 tenure, cable TV channel CTI reported.

Taipei  - Taiwan on Tuesday demanded that Japan make a formal apology and pay compensation to women who were forced to serve as prostitutes for the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

The Taiwan parliament passed a resolution demanding Japan apologize for forcibly recruiting the women, who were euphemistically called comfort women, and pay them compensation.

Taipei- A Taiwan man set himself on fire Tuesday to protest President Ma Ying-jeou's moves to improve ties with China.

The man doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire at Liberty Square, where hundreds of students were staging a sit-in against a police crackdown on demonstrators during last week's visit by Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin.

Taipei  - More than 7,000 small-and-medium enterprises have shut down in Taiwan in the past two years due to recession, a government agency announced Monday.

"At the end of 2006, there were 1.23 million small-and-medium enterprises in Taiwan. By the end of 2007, the number had dropped by more than 7,000," Lin Ping-pin, secretary-general of the National Association for Small-and-Medium Enterprises, said at a conference for small-and-medium enterprises, which is held every three years.

Taipei  - A Taiwan rooster has been spared the fate of being killed, cooked and eaten because of its good looks, the chicken's raisers said Monday.

In February, the Shifang School for Mentally Retarded in Taichung, central Taiwan, bought 20 chicks to raise, intending to sell them when they grew up to raise funds for the cash-strapped school, Wei Cheng-feng, executive director of the school, said.

Taipei - Taiwan announced an interest-rate cut Sunday to slow down the recession and to stimulate the island's economy.

The central bank of Taiwan said that starting Monday it would cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points.

The rediscount rate would be cut from 3 to 2.75 per cent, the rate on accommodation with collateral from 3.375 to 3.125 per cent and the rate on accommodation without collateral from 5.25 to 5 per cent.

Central bank governor Peng Fai-nan said that the interest rate cut would ease inflation caused by fallen oil and commodity prices, the 8.3-per-cent drop in Taiwan's October exports and the International Monetary Fund's forecast that all major industrial nations except China would face an economic downturn in 2009.