President Ma Ying-jeou has decided to declassify all documents and materials involved in an investigation of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian for corruption, a presidential spokesman said yesterday.

The Ethics Committee of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) adopted a proposal to suspend the rights of Taitung County Magistrate Kuang Li-jen as a party member, on grounds that her absence during a recent typhoon has harmed the interests of residents in the county and compromised the image of the party.

Paris prosecutors said Wednesday they have called for a seven-year probe into alleged kickbacks paid for the multi-billion-dollar sale of French warships to Taiwan in 1991 to be dismissed without trial.

The number of outbound tourists in July posted a 10 percent decline from a year earlier to fall to 746,000, mainly due to poor performance of the local stock market and surging flight ticket prices, according to the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

New Zealand has decided to scale down its tourism promotion operations in Taiwan starting on Oct. 1 due to the dwindling number of tourists from the island.

Clapping rhythmically and shouting encouragement, thousands of Taiwanese fans rise to their feet in Taichung's Intercontinental Stadium as the island's beloved Olympic baseball team charges onto a sun-dappled field.

The number of applicants for the lump-sum elderly payment by wage earners joining the nationwide labor insurance program has now dropped sharply, according to officials at the Bureau of Labor Insurance under the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA).