Taiwan

Torrential rains and high winds are predicted across Taiwan from Monday afternoon as Dujuan neared the east coast, with landfall predicted around 11pm local time.

Taiwan’s weather bureau upgraded Dujuan to a “strong typhoon” Sunday – it’s top category.

Other regional weather bureaus, including the Hong Kong Observatory, categorised it as a “super typhoon” as it intensified to reach gusts of 227km per hour.

“It is due to exert influence from noon after its edge reaches the island,” said an official at Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.

Greenpeace activists say they discovered a falsified log book and almost 100 kilos of shark fins when they boarded the vessel on the high seas in the north west Pacific earlier this month.

The environmental group's Lagi Toribau says the Taiwan Fisheries Agency is now escorting the Shuen De Ching No 888 back to Taiwan where the ship faces suspension from operations for up to a year.

The 30 participants, all from countries that are Taiwan's diplomatic allies, are receiving training in the areas of automobile maintenance, carpentry and electrical engineering, said Lee Pai-po deputy secretary-general of the Taipei-based International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF).

The programme, which started Sept. 4 and runs until Dec. 22, is aimed at cultivating seed instructors for vocational training in the participating Pacific island countries, namely Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands, Lee said at a news briefing.

Typhoon Soudelor made landfall in China's Fujian province late Saturday night and was downgraded into a tropical storm as it moved across the region.

Rains from the typhoon triggered mudslides in mountainous Pingyang county in Zhejiang province, north of Fujian, killing nine people and leaving three others missing, the county government said.

A total of 101 people were hurt in Taiwan and more than 3 million households lost electricity as the powerful storm left streets strewn with fallen trees. All 279 domestic flights were canceled Saturday, as well as at least 37 international flights.

An 8-year-old girl and her mother died when they were swept out to sea Thursday from a beach on the east coast, the official Central News Agency reported. The girl's twin sister remains missing.

The ruling Nationalist Party on Sunday picked as its candidate Hung Hsiu-chu, a former teacher and the current deputy legislative speaker. Hung, who supports friendly relations with China, will run against Tsai Ing-wen, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party chairwoman and an advocate of more cautious relations with Beijing. Tsai leads in opinion polls ahead of January's election.

Ties with Beijing, long icy but cordial since 2008, have shaped up as an early campaign issue.