TOKYO, Nov. 27 -- (Kyodo) _ ---------- Taiwan elections under way, ex-vice president's son recovers from attack

TAIPEI - Taiwan's leading politicians called for calm Saturday as the country's five biggest cities voted in crucial mayoral and council elections in the shadow of a fatal shooting in which a prominent Nationalist Party (KMT) politician was wounded.

Sean Lien, 40, son of former Vice President Lien Chan and a KMT identity in his own right, was shot through the face Friday night after a gunman walked on stage during a rally for a local council candidate in Yonghe, Taipei County, local media said.

---------- U.N. envoy arrives in Myanmar to meet Suu Kyi, junta representatives

YANGON - A senior U.N. official arrived in Myanmar on Saturday to meet with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and senior government officials as part of his mandate to monitor the country's political situation after Nov. 7 general election, its first in 20 years.

Soon after his arrival in Yangon for a two-day visit, Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian diplomat who was appointed as U.N. special envoy to Myanmar earlier this year, met separately with Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win and representatives of various U.N. agencies.

---------- 5 more elephants killed in Indonesia's Sumatra

JAKARTA - Five more endangered wild Sumatran elephants have been killed in Indonesia's Riau Province, located in the center of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca, a WWF official said Saturday.

Soemantri, WWF spokesman in Riau Province, said his office received a report about the killing Friday from locals who found elephants in a palm oil plantation in Pauh Ranap village of Indragiri Hulu Regency.

---------- Cabinet members on alert over N. Korea developments

TOKYO - All members of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet were on alert Saturday for developments in North Korea prior to a four-day joint military drill to be conducted by South Korea and the United States in the Yellow Sea from Sunday.

Cabinet members have been ordered by Kan to stay in Tokyo until Wednesday and be at their ministry offices within an hour in the event emergency situations develop, following Pyongyang's bombardment Tuesday of a South Korean island that put the Japanese government under attack from opposition parties for what they argue was a slow response.

---------- Calls for official relief of ex-comfort women growing

TOKYO - Calls remain, or rather, are growing for the Japanese government to offer an official apology to former wartime sex slaves, known as "comfort women," and to provide them with compensation through legislation.

In 1993, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged the forced recruitment of women by the imperial army into sexual servitude and apologized to the victims in a statement, but that was not enough to satisfy the victims, according to them and their supporters.