A college student threw a book at Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou as he left a Taipei hotel to protest increasingly cordial relations with China, his office confirmed Saturday.

The student glanced a copy of "Formosa Betrayed" off the leader, a highly critical historical account of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party in the years after World War II, in the incident on Friday.

A toddler was killed and at least 14 people were injured in a gas explosion near Taipei on Friday, officials said, two weeks after powerful gas blasts claimed 30 lives in southern Taiwan.

Firefighters rushed to put out a fire after the explosion in an apartment in a 17-storey building in the Xindian district of New Taipei City earlier Friday, shattering the glass in several nearby stores, television footage showed.

Two crew members and a weather station employee were killed Wednesday when a helicopter crashed into a mountain in central Taiwan, officials said.

The Sunrise Airlines helicopter was carrying supplies to a weather station on Yushan, the island's highest mountain, when it crashed into the mountain's north peak, the National Fire Agency said.

A strong earthquake jolted Taiwan on Sunday, killing two people and injuring at least 21 others and causing panicked shoppers to rush out of a shaking multi-story department store, officials said.

Another earthquake jolted the southern Philippines late Saturday, injuring at least 33 people and damaging more than 140 houses.

Taiwan's police said Tuesday they have launched an investigation into a report that gamblers are betting tens of millions of dollars on the life expectancy of terminally ill cancer patients.

The investigation comes after Taipei-based Next magazine claimed that gamblers -- including the families and doctors of cancer sufferers -- in the central city of Taichung are placing bets as high as Tw$1.0 billion ($34.5 million) on when patients will die.

Taiwanese coastguards said Sunday they will next month stage a live-fire exercise in disputed South China Sea islands with new, longer-range artillery and mortars, in a move that risks fresh tensions.

The potentially resource-rich sea, home to important trade routes, is an increasingly dangerous flashpoint and there have been a string of recent diplomatic rows between countries with overlapping territorial claims.

Asian markets mostly fell on Friday as a meeting between the eurozone's three biggest economies highlighted their differences on finding a solution to the region's debt crisis.

Traders remained nervous at the end of a week that saw fears over Europe deepen as the yields on Italian and Spanish bonds sat dangerously high and even Germany -- the bloc's pillar -- failed to sell all its bonds at auction.

Asian markets slipped again on Friday as traders grew increasingly concerned the Eurozone crisis will soon envelope larger economies after borrowing costs for France and Spain shot higher.

Tokyo finished 1.23 percent, or 104.72 points, lower at 8,374.91 and Sydney fell 1.91 percent, or 81.2 points, to end at 4,177 while Seoul finished 2.00 percent, or 37.50 points, lower at 1,839.17.

A Taiwanese man has been arrested over the theft of 35 skeletons which had been discovered at a construction site in the island's north, police said Wednesday.

The skeletons, unclaimed and apparently from an old burial ground, had been placed temporarily in a warehouse. The man allegedly stole them and took them to Taipei, where he was caught on Tuesday, police in Miaoli county said.

Asian stocks rallied on Wednesday, part of a global uptick after the U.S. Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates near zero for at least two years.

Tokyo rose 1.05 percent, or 94.26 percent, to 9,038.74, Sydney added 2.64 percent, or 106.5 points, to 4,141.3 and Seoul gained 0.27 percent, or 4.89 points, to 1,806.24.