NEW DELHI - INDIA rejoiced on Saturday at joining an elite club by planting its flag on the moon as the country's space agency released the first pictures of the cratered surface taken by its maiden lunar mission.

A probe sent late on Friday from the orbiting mother spacecraft took pictures and gathered other data India needs for a future moon landing as it plummeted to a crash-landing at the moon's south pole, said Indian Space Research Organisation spokesman B.R. Guruprasad.

TAIPEI - SUPPORTERS of Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian rallied on Saturday outside a detention centre in Taipei where he is being held on corruption allegations.

Chen was arrested and formally detained on Wednesday and has been on hunger strike since then to protest what he calls a politically-motivated campaign against him.

WASHINGTON - JAPANESE Prime Minister Taro Aso has brushed aside concern about a revival of Japan's nationalism after he fired the nation's air force commander over his view of its militarist past, a daily said on Saturday.