■Airlines
Dragonair wins flight rights
Dragonair got clearance to fly to five Asian cities now served by Cathay Pacific Airways, officials said yesterday, but Dragonair may put off launching any new services until it sees whether Cathay encroaches on its turf in mainland China. Cathay, Hong Kong's largest carrier, is a minority owner of Dragonair, but the two began competing recently on the lucrative Hong Kong-Taipei route. Before that, there was no overlap in their flights under an old rule that permitted just one carrier based in Hong Kong to serve any particular route. Dragonair won permission from Hong Kong regulators to fly from Hong Kong to Manila, Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok and Sydney, but spokeswoman Bevis Yiu said the carrier would not immediately start serving any of those destinations. Yiu declined to elaborate.
■ Airlines
United plans to lay off pilots
United Airlines announced plans to lay off another 352 pilots over the next two months as part of its plan to decrease its flying schedule next year. The company said Tuesday that it will cut 220 pilots' jobs on Jan. 6 and another 132 on Feb. 7, reducing its current total of 8,600 pilots by an additional 4 percent. The actions will increase the number of pilots laid off to 1,196 from cost-saving measures the carrier announced last month, and 9,000 employees in all. United currently has about 83,000 employees. "This is a very difficult announcement to make because of the impact it will have on our employees and their families," said Steve Forte, United's senior vice president for flight operations.
■ Mobile phones
Motorola's China sales rise
Motorola Inc, the biggest overseas company in China, expects sales from the country to rise at least a 10th this year because it exported more cellphones and semiconductor chips, company China President Timothy Chen said. Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola had US$5 billion in sales from China last year, including both domestic sales and exports, the most of any foreign company in the country. The company's global sales were US$30 billion last year. "I'm looking for at least 10 percent growth this year," Chen said in an interview. "Next year, there's potential to grow too. One of the engines is coming from exports. We're using China as a worldwide manufacturing center."
■ Entertainment
Disney cuts earnings
Walt Disney Co cut by 21 percent its most recent quarterly earnings after determining the animated film Treasure Planet would make US$47 million less than it expected. Shares fell as much as 5.3 percent in after-hours trading. The second-biggest US entertainment company said federal regulators are investigating whether some of its outside directors aren't sufficiently independent. Disney, criticized by investors such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System for ties between directors and the company, said former US Senator George Mitchell was named presiding director. The shares have fallen 38 percent over the past four years. CEO Michael Eisner has "done very poorly over the last four years," said Scott Black, of Delphi Management Inc, which held 398,000 Disney shares as of Oct. 4. "You have to ask yourself if he can turn this thing around."
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
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
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
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