Taiwan`s former president Chen Shui-bian was released from hospital and returned to a detention centre Wednesday, on the second week of a hunger strike to protest his arrest on graft allegations.

Chen left the hospital by ambulance while dozens of supporters gathered and honked air horns as he was driven back to the detention centre.

Taiwan`s former president Chen Shui-bian was released from hospital and returned to a detention centre Wednesday, on the second week of a hunger strike to protest his arrest on graft allegations.

Chen left the hospital by ambulance while dozens of supporters gathered and honked air horns as he was driven back to the detention centre.

Taiwan`s detained former president Chen Shui-bian was rushed to hospital Sunday, a doctor said, days after he went on hunger strike to protest his arrest on graft allegations.

Chen arrived at the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in Panchiao city, 10 minutes after his ambulance left the Tucheng detention centre outside Taipei, the private TVBS news network said.

Three ministers from Bangladesh`s last elected government, including the head of the largest Islamic party, were freed Sunday, a prison official said, just a month before the country goes to polls.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and two other ministers from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government were last week detained over a coal mining graft case.

Taiwan`s detained former president Chen Shui-bian was rushed to hospital Sunday, TVBS news network said in a live report.

Chen arrived at the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in Panchiao city, 10 minutes after his ambulance left the Tucheng detention centre outside Taipei, TVBS said, where he is being held on graft allegations.

WASHINGTON, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - German telecommunications giant Siemens AG paid about 17.5 million dollars (12 million euros) in bribes to government and industry officials in Nigeria, Russia and Libya in a bid to win contracts, The Wall Street Journal Europe reported on its website Saturday.

Using documents released last month by a court in Munich, the newspaper published a list of alleged recipients of 77 bribes from the three countries, detailing how much money went to each of the officials.

MADRID, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Police in Madrid investigating corruption allegations against city council officials have made a 17th arrest, a spokesman said Saturday.

Police said the latest arrest was of an 'entrepreneur', not a civil servant or engineer like the other 16 arrested on Wednesday.

The alleged corruption centres around the granting of licences for businesses, bars, restaurants and discos in the Spanish capital.

Five other civil servants have been 'implicated' in the affair but remain at liberty, police added.

LONDON, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Former Mozambique president Joachim Chissano was awarded a new 5.0-million-dollar (3.5-million-euro) prize for good governance in Africa on Monday, hailed as 'a powerful voice for Africa on the international stage.'

The inaugural award by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was announced by former UN chief Kofi Annan, who trumpeted Chissano's role in bringing reconciliation to his homeland.

MANILA, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Jailed former Philippine president Joseph Estrada on Monday asked his successor Gloria Arroyo for a full pardon after he was sentenced to life for massive corruption, his lawyer said.

'In the highest national interest, to which president Estrada is always willing to subordinate his own, we appeal to your excellency to grant him full, free and unconditional pardon,' lead lawyer Jose Flaminiano said in a letter to Arroyo.

ABUJA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Nigeria's House of Representatives remained closed Thursday as parliamentarians travelled to the northern Katsina state to attend the burial of a lawmaker who died the previous day, an MP said.

Lawmaker Aminu Safana, 46, died Wednesday during a rowdy parlimentary brawl that was meant to be a hearing on the outcome of a corruption probe into house speaker Patricia Etteh, but the cause of death remained unclear.

'We are not sitting today,' parliamentarian Salihu Abdulkareem told AFP, adding that the next sitting is likely to be next Tuesday.