China on Wednesday banned imports of some food products and additives from Taiwan after authorities in Taipei warned they were tainted with a chemical used in plastics, prompting a health scare.

The ban affects products including sports drinks, fruit juices and jams that Taipei said contained excessive amounts of DEHP, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

One of China's best-known ancient paintings, torn into two parts in the 17th century, was shown in its entirety in Taiwan Wednesday for the first time in more than 360 years.

China and Taiwan have one part each, and the fact that the two could be joined together for the first time in generations symbolized a broader trend of closer ties across the Taiwan Strait, officials said.

At least six people were killed and 60 others injured Wednesday when a train carrying Chinese tourists was hit by a falling tree at a popular mountain spot in central Taiwan, officials said.

The sightseeing train was traveling along Mount Ali when the tree trunk fell, causing four carriages to derail and overturn, said an official at the forestry bureau, which supervises the area.

Taiwan's main opposition party said Wednesday it will nominate ex-vice premier Tsai Ing-wen for next year's presidential election, the first woman in Taiwan's history to run for the post.

Tsai, 54, won the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) primary to secure her candidacy against two senior party members, said acting chairman Ker Chien-ming.

Taiwan's government on Thursday ordered a Chinese writer to leave the island after he claimed that slapping a person's body can cure chronic disease.

Xiao Hongci drew criticism when he claimed that his "slapping therapy" had healing powers at a promotion in Taipei earlier this week, slapping a woman's arm red while demonstrating his technique.

Taiwan's government said Thursday it is planning to create legal red-light districts so that it can police the sex trade more easily and protect sex workers' rights.

Under the proposal, sex workers would be able to apply for licenses to operate in authorized zones and would be punished for plying their trade elsewhere, along with their clients.

The co-sponsor of Asia's leading IT trade fair is expecting up to 100 tablet computers to be launched at the event in May, with technology firms vying for a slice of Apple's success with the iPad.

Chang Li, secretary-general of the Taipei Computer Association, which co-sponsors the 2011 Computex Taipei trade fair, said that the sector was increasingly shifting towards the tablet market.

When Wang, 24, went to jail three years ago he had no idea he would end up in a bid to break a record for most inmates dancing together.

Wang is one of more than 2,000 inmates in Changhua Prison in central Taiwan who routinely take part in mass dancing sessions as part of a larger program aimed at reforming prisoners through art and creativity.

Like many Taiwanese teenage girls, Lee You-fang likes to sing pop songs and play with her pet dog, but she has an unusual job: working with the bones of the dead.

For five years, 19-year-old Lee has honed her craft as a "bone collector," assisting her father in an ancient funerary rite that involves collecting, cleaning and arranging human skeletons for reburial.