■Automobiles
Honda keen on China
Honda Motor Co said it expects to sell 70,000 of its new Accord sedan in China in the first year after starting sales this month, as Japan's second-largest automaker expands its range in the country. The model, based on the US version, will be priced at 259,800 yuan (US$31,390) for its 2.4-liter version, the company said in a statement. The automaker's plant operated by Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co began production of the new model today. Automakers from around the globe are competing to increase market share and customer loyalty in one of the fastest growing auto markets in the world as economic growth in the US, Europe and Japan slows. Honda, which analysts have said is one of two automakers making a profit in China, is doubling its production capacity in China to 240,000 units by early next year from this year.
■ Electronics
Sony to close warehouses
Sony Corp, the world's No. 2 consumer-electronics maker, plans to shutter 10 percent of its distribution and parts procurement centers worldwide as part of measures to lower costs and increase competitiveness. Sony plans to reduce the number of its warehouses and parts centers to a little more than 100 globally compared with 115 currently. The cuts include closing some product distribution centers. "We have too many of the centers," said Tadakatsu Hasebe, president of Sony Logistics Corp, responsible for electronics product distribution for the Sony group. "We need to close those located in the same area."
■ Corporate crime
LA businessman charged
A Los Angeles businessman who was pardoned by US President Bill Clinton for a 1983 fraud conviction was charged with federal tax evasion, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Almon Glenn Braswell, 59, was arrested Monday in Miami by agents with the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly engaging in elaborate conspiracies to evade the payment of millions of dollars in corporate and personal income taxes, AP said. Braswell owns a mail-order vitamin and health-supplement business. Braswell, who had been sentenced to three years in federal prison for mail fraud and perjury, was one of 177 pardons and clemencies Clinton granted before leaving office in 2001. Braswell's pardon was criticized after it was disclosed that Hugh Rodham, Clinton's brother-in-law, had been paid US$200,000 to work on the case, AP said. Rodham returned the money.
■ Aquaculture
Caution urged on GM fish
New fish varieties genetically engineered in laboratories to grow faster and larger should be kept off the market until the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) addresses their potential threat to wild species, a private research group said Tuesday. The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology questioned the adequacy of FDA regulations in assessing the risks of such transgenic fish escaping pens and taking over the habitat of nongenetically engineered varieties. "FDA needs to be able to answer these questions in a sort of open and transparent manner before these products hit the marketplace," said Michael Fernandez, the Pew group's science director.
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