A Taiwan court Wednesday jailed two men for a bizarre plot in which they planted suitcases containing petrol and cyanide on a train and in a politician's office hoping to profit from the investor panic they thought would ensue.

The mastermind of the high-profile case, identified only by his family name Hu, was sentenced to 22 years on charges of attempted murder, the New Taipei City District Court said in a statement.

Taiwan has said it plans to slash its armed forces by up to 20 percent from 215,000 over the next five years, in the latest sign of warming ties with former rival China.

Defense Minister Yen Ming said the military would be cut to 170,000-190,000, but that defense capabilities would not be compromised in the project to build "smaller but leaner and more professional armed forces.”

A young Taiwanese military intelligence officer who had been on the country's 'wanted' list after failing to return from an overseas trip has been deported by the British authorities, the government said.

Yeh Mei, a lieutenant with Taiwan's Military Intelligence Agency was deported on Saturday for overstaying her visa and escorted to Taiwan by British personnel, the Taiwanese foreign ministry said in a statement.

A former Taiwanese air force officer was sentenced to life in prison for spying for China, a court said Friday, adding to a string of spying scandals in recent years.

Lieutenant Colonel Yuan Hsiao-feng was convicted on 12 accounts of leaking confidential military information to China between 2003 and 2007, the supreme court said.

Taiwanese authorities on Wednesday slapped a fine of Tw$20 million ($667,000) on U.S tech giant Apple for violating a fair trade law over .local iPhone pricing.

The Fair Trade Commission said an Apple unit in charge of Taiwan sales had interfered in the pricing and mobile phone payment rates of three local telecom service providers, despite selling them the distribution rights to the phones.

Taiwan prosecutors Monday indicted a judge on charges of graft and sought to confiscate over $1.5 million dollars worth of alleged illicit assets owned by him, in the latest scandal to hit the island's judiciary.

Hu Chin-pin, a senior judge at the central Taichung High Court, was charged with accepting bribes, according to a statement by the special prosecutors office at the conclusion of a three-year investigation.

A Taiwanese court has suspended the trial of former President Chen Shui-bian on the ground that he is suffering from depression, dementia and other health problems, officials said Saturday.

Chen, who is already serving a 20-year jail term for corruption, has been on trial since last year for allegedly taking illegal possession of confidential documents while he was in office.

Taiwan and China have conducted rare talks on exchanging intelligence agents jailed on each side, in a further sign of warming ties between the former rivals, local media reported Monday.

Representatives from China asked Taiwan to release former army general Lo Hsien-che, the highest-ranking Taiwanese official to be convicted of spying for China in Taiwan, the Taipei-based China Times said.

World leaders have heaped praise on the late Nelson Mandela, but among the countries paying tribute are some that had long backed the South African apartheid regime that jailed him.

Many of the eulogies for the iconic peacemaker have glossed over Western support for the white supremacist regime in Pretoria during the Cold War, when Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) were blacklisted as Soviet proxies.

A former Taiwanese air force captain was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for leaking military secrets to China, in the latest spying scandal to hit the island.

Chiang Fu-chung was convicted of leaking large amounts of confidential documents to China through his uncle, a Taiwanese businessman based on the mainland, the high court said.