FORMER Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre's chief executive Ming Yi has been allowed by the courts to travel overseas, two weeks after being convicted on criminal charges.

The 47-year-old Buddhist monk requested permission to travel to Hong Kong and Thailand between Oct 26 and Nov 11 to attend to some temple matters.

BEIJING - CHINA'S army will recruit 130,000 graduates from Chinese universities and colleges this winter to raise the quality of the armed forces and help solve the job crisis facing graduates.

Chinese sources last month told Reuters of a plan to cut the 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army by 700,000, mainly lower-skilled foot soldiers, while adding better-educated recruits able to serve in a technologically sophisticated force.

PARIS - FILM director Roman Polanski, now in Swiss detention, may decide to face justice in the United States, where he is wanted on a 1977 sex charge, to avoid lengthy extradition procedures, one of his lawyers said on Wednesday.

The Oscar-winning director was arrested in Switzerland on Sept 26 in connection with the sex case. A Swiss court on Tuesday rejected his request for release on bail, saying there was a strong risk that he would flee.

MANILA - OUSTED leader Joseph Estrada, convicted of plunder and later pardoned, said on Wednesday he wants to run in next year's elections despite legal challenges and immediate objections to the idea of his political comeback.

'This will be the final, final performance of my life,' he told The Associated Press. 'I should not fail the Filipino people in this next chapter.'