Taiwan

The company said it hoped the withdrawal of the ride-hailing app would persuade Taiwan's leadership to think again.

"We have not made this decision lightly, as we know it will have a significant impact on hundreds of thousands of drivers and riders," Uber said in a statement that criticized the Taiwan government for failing to embrace innovation.

Deputy Prime Minister Manasseh Maelanga who is also the Minister for Home Affairs says the stadium venue is expected to cost more than $US28 million.

Mr Maelanga said the country's official preparations will kick off next month once the 2023 Pacific Games Bill is passed by parliament.

But he said a Taiwanese team has already been to look at the proposed sites for the games venues and have returned to Taipei to work out the full details of the project.

I am not a fan," he said, particularly when it comes to the incoming US President's comments on women and ethnic minorities. It's not that surprising, given that Lim, lead singer in a popular heavy metal band, is one of Taiwan's most progressive legislators.

Yet when Trump accepted an official call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, Lim was delighted. He hopes the call is just the beginning.

Mr Trump's transition team said he and Tsai Ing-wen noted "close economic, political, and security ties" between the US and Taiwan in a phone call.

The move risks angering China, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has reportedly dismissed the call as a "small move" by Taiwan.

Mr Trump tweeted that Ms Tsai had called him to congratulate him on winning the US election.

Now a genetic study has raised intriguing new insights into who the pioneering sea-going people who first arrived on the remote South Pacific Islands were.

The findings suggest that the first inhabitants on the Polynesian islands did not come from New Guinea as originally thought.

Instead they appear to have come from another mysterious Neolithic East Asian population that is thought to have originated in Taiwan.

Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, is part of the Spratly Island chain, embroiled in increasingly tense South China Sea territorial disputes.

Although it is controlled by Taiwan, the island is also claimed by mainland China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Four new structures have appeared since Google Earth's last satellite images.

The images showed four three-pronged structures in a semi-circle next to an upgraded airstrip and near a sizeable new port.

What is the South China Sea dispute?

Meranti is forecast to make landfall along the southern tip of the island of Taiwan, home to more than 23 million people, on Wednesday morning local time.

Fortunately, most of the population lives on the northern and western side of the island. Even though Meranti, which likely will still be a super typhoon at landfall (meaning the winds are in excess of 150 mph/240 kph) on the southern tip, the entire island will feel the storm's wrath.

The top she wears is tight, and the transparent miniskirt she's wearing reveals a tattoo on her hip. She's waiting for truck drivers or working men to stop and buy her goods.

In most other cities, it might be assumed those "goods" were sexual services.

But not here.

Ling Ling sells betel nuts, an addictive snack that is hugely popular in Taiwan, India, Myanmar and other parts of Asia.

"The more beautiful you are, the more money you can make," she says. "That's why I dress like this."

Deadly and addictive

But the anthem that played for the first Taiwanese athlete to ever win gold -- she won gold at the 2004 Olympics in the lightweight taekwondo competition -- was not the one Chen heard growing up, nor was the flag in front of her the red and blue of Taiwan.

Instead, Chen stood under the white banner of "Chinese Taipei," a nation that does not exist, the result of a political compromise stemming from divisions that have existed since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

A network of criminals from eastern Europe and Russia used malware to hack into dozens of First Commercial Bank ATMs, police say.

CCTV footage shows masked thieves walking away with bags of stolen cash.

One Latvian man was held in northeast Taiwan, while two other suspects were arrested in the capital Taipei.

More than half of the money has been recovered but another 13 suspects are believed to have fled the country.

Bags of cash