Adding to the gloom in Hong Kong's battered media industry, the publisher Time Inc on Thursday shut down its magazine Asiaweek, eliminating 80 jobs and one of the region's two big English-language newsweeklies.
Asiaweek President Peter Brack said a difficult market had been made even worse by the financial fallout from the Sept. 11 terror attacks, forcing the closure that follows other rounds of job losses in the news business here.
PHOTO: AP PHOTO
At Asiaweek's corporate parent, Time Inc., Chairman and Chief Executive Don Logan said in a statement the decision was made after reviewing Asiaweek's ``performance and its long-term business prospects.''
Logan's statement gave no details on the magazine's finances.
Asiaweek said the issue released yesterday would be its last, leaving Asia with just one big regional newsweekly, the Far Eastern Economic Review, which recently saw its editorial staff merged with the daily Asian Wall Street Journal for a loss of 36 editorial jobs.
Asiaweek had been the main competitor for Far Eastern Economic Review, published by Dow Jones & Co.
Time Inc said the Asiaweek staff will be paid through the end of December and then offered help finding other work, possibly including jobs elswhere in Time Inc or AOL Time Warner.
Asiaweekwas launched in 1975 and the company had attempted earlier this year to rejuvenate the magazine with a new focus on business news.
Asiaweek ended with a circulation of 120,000 but was closed along with other Time Inc magazines that have been hit by hard times in the global advertising industry.
"Our staff's passion, dedication and enthusiasm, which succeeded in creating a far better magazine earlier this year, have been truly impressive -- and certainly made the decision even more painful," Brack said in a statement issued after he met with the magazine's employees.
Several >>Asiaweek<< journalists, reached by telephone, referred questions to a company spokeswoman, Anna Soellner, who did not immediately respond to a call from The Associated Press.
The recent bad economic times have prompted other job cuts in the Hong Kong media business, including 18 positions at the English-language daily South China Morning Post, and 100 jobs at its rival, the tabloid Hong Kong iMail.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique