■Crude oil
Prices rise over Iraq fears
Crude oil rose after the chairman of Iraq's parliament said his country, source of almost 3 percent of the world's oil, may not comply with a UN resolution requiring unfettered arms inspections. The UN Security Council resolution threatens military action against Iraq if it refuses to cooperate with weapons inspections. "The Iraqis have just accelerated the war calendar," said John Kilduff, senior vice president of energy risk management at Fimat USA Inc in New York. "This is the type of statement that the US needs to justify action." Crude oil for December delivery rose US$0.20, or 0.8 percent, to US$26.14 in after-hours, electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:47am Singapore time, after rising as much as 1 percent. Earlier in floor trading, oil rose 16 cents to US$25.94 a barrel. Prices have risen 31 percent this year partly on concern that exports from the Persian Gulf, source of a quarter of the world's oil, would be disrupted by a war in Iraq.
■ Foreign Sellers
Motorola, VW tops in China
Motorola Inc's China phone-making unit had the biggest domestic sales of any overseas company for the second year running, the Jiefang Daily reported.
Motorola (Tianjin) Electronics Ltd sold 41 billion yuan (US$5 billion) worth of mobile phones and equipment last year, the party-run paper said. Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co was second with 32 billion yuan in sales of passenger cars.
Motorola shares fell 4.8 percent to US$8.38 yesterday in New York. Volkswagen shares gained 1.7 percent to 36.70 euros in Frankfurt yesterday.
■ Mobile phones
Internet service offered
NEC Corp's Biglobe, Nifty Corp and five other Japanese Internet-service providers together will offer Internet-based phone service in the first half of next year, the Nikkei reported. The companies, also including Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp's OCN and Sony Corp's So-net, will let about 2 million customers call each other for free over the network. Users will get 11-digit dial-up numbers starting with 050 and the testing of the service will start this year, Nikkei said. Users must have high-speed Internet connections to use the service. Japan's fixed-line phone market is valued at ?5 trillion (US$41.8 billion), Nikkei said. Other companies in the agreement include KDDI Corp's DION, Japan Telecom Holdings Co's ODN and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
■ Biotech
Bananas fight cancer
Cancer-fighting tomatoes and bananas that protect against sexually transmitted diseases top the list of advancements being made in biotech food, according to Americans surveyed by an industry group. The Council for Biotechnology Information said that a research program aimed at enhancing tomatoes with an antioxidant believed to help fight cancer was ranked as the leading biotech food development in 2002 by two-thirds of a group of 1,000 American adults surveyed. Such a tomato is not yet commercially available, but is one of myriad genetically modified plants going through the research and development process. The other top developments in food biotechnology, according to the Roper survey, included a sweet potato that is resistant to a particularly destructive plant virus.
Agencies
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