Taiwan is considering banning doctors from performing gender screening of foetuses in a bid to curb sex-selective abortions, health authorities said Friday.

The bureau of health promotion said it was reviewing the issue after up to 3,000 female babies were presumed to have been aborted in Taiwan last year.

Taiwan business tycoon Samuel Yin, whose assets are reportedly worth more than $3 billion, has pledged to donate 95 percent of his wealth to charity after he dies, local media said Thursday.

The 60-year-old, who is one of the island's richest men, announced the pledge -- the biggest ever of its kind in Taiwan -- in an interview with Business Today, a Taipei-based Chinese-language weekly.

Apple has lost a long-running legal battle against a Taiwanese-owned company that it claimed was illegally using its iconic iPad trademark in China, court officials and state media said.

A court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen ruled Tuesday that Apple lacked "supporting facts and evidence" for its claim that Proview Technology (Shenzhen) was infringing the US company's iconic tablet computer trademark.

An innovative scheme to keep the streets of northern Taiwan clean has seen thousands of citizens dutifully collecting bags of dog poop in the hope of winning $2,000 in gold.

More than 4,000 residents of New Taipei City, which surrounds the capital, have signed up for the competition since it was launched in early August, and have so far collected 14,000 bags of the stuff.

Google on Thursday began construction of a new data center in Hong Kong, the first of three planned for Asia as the Web giant expands to meet the region's growing thirst for information technology.

The facility, Google's first outside the United States and Europe, will cost US$300 million and is being built on 2.7 hectares (6.7 acres) in the Tseung Kwan O industrial estate in Kowloon, the firm said.

Taiwan's state-owned CPC Corporation on Tuesday signed a 20-year contract with Qatar's RasGas to buy 1.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year.

The sales and purchase agreement was signed by Taiwan's sole importer of LNG and RasGas subsidiary Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co Limited (3), or RL3, on the sidelines of the 20th World Petroleum Congress held in Doha.

A rally on global markets stalled Thursday as euphoria over major central banks' coordinated cut to borrowing costs wore off and investors sought confirmation that European leaders will next week deliver a long-term solution to the debt crisis.

Markets had jumped on Wednesday when the central banks of Europe, the U.S., Britain, Canada, Japan and Switzerland made it cheaper for banks to borrow dollars, helping them to operate smoothly at a time of tight credit. China's central bank also acted to release money for lending and shore up growth by lowering bank reserve levels for the first time in three years.

Facebook has allied with Taiwan's HTC to build a customized smartphone powered by Google's Android mobile operating system, according to technology blog All Things Digital.

The project, code named "Buffy," is aimed at making a handset tailored for the California-based social networking platform, according to the blog, which is owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi on Tuesday said they had signed a deal to merge their small and medium-sized liquid crystal display businesses for smartphones and tablet computers.

The move will create a new company, Japan Display, by Spring 2012.

Taiwan authorities Friday reminded opposition presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen not to receive money from minors, after a group of children reportedly donated their piggy banks to her campaign.

The Control Yuan, the top government watchdog, said it had contacted Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for a "kindly reminder" after media reports said she had accepted the children's offer of their piggy banks at a rally.