Taiwan, Asia | featured news

A scheduled flight from the Taiwanese capital of Taipei to the eastern Chinese city of Shanghai was diverted to a nearby Chinese airport Saturday after a passenger told cabin crew his luggage contained explosives....

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 shook much of Taiwan on Monday, the Central Weather Bureau said, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked southern Taiwan Thursday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of damage, injuries or deaths.

Taiwan has effectively dropped a request for U.S. submarines to help shore up the balance of power with political rival China, a military source said on Tuesday, dissolving what could be a new rift in tense Sino-U.S.

China has said it will impose unspecified sanctions on U.S. firms selling weapons to Taiwan in retaliation for the U.S. announcement that it planned to sell $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.

The Chinese government Saturday announced a series of harsh retaliatory measures in protest of the Pentagon's $6-billion arms sale to Taiwan, including a suspension of security exchanges and threatened sanctions on U.S. companies selling to Taiwan.

China said Saturday it had suspended military exchanges with the United States over Washington's $6.4-billion arms deal with Taiwan, the territory that Beijing claims as its own.

The move is sure to enrage China and could possibly complicate the Obama administration’s push to get Beijing’s cooperation on Iran.

A strong earthquake rocks parts of Taiwan, rattling buildings in Taipei, although no serious casualties are reported yet.

The country's second storm in eight days cuts across the northeastern tip of the main island of Luzon and heads toward Taiwan. Typhoon Parma slammed into the Philippines today, ripping off roofs, toppling power pylons and swelling rivers in the country's mountainous north.