■ Unemployment
Japan's jobless rate rises
Japan's unemployment rate rose to match a record 5.5 percent last month and consumer prices extended a four-and-a-half year slide, as slowing sales forced retailers to slash jobs and offer discounts. Japan's jobless rate rose from a revised 5.3 percent in December, the state statistics bureau said. The government also said Tokyo's core consumer prices, regarded as a benchmark for nationwide prices, fell 0.1 percent this month. It forecast that industrial production will drop 0.4 percent this month, after a 1.5 percent gain last month. "Japan's economy is still at a standstill," Heizo Takenaka, economic and fiscal policy minister, told reporters yesterday. Yasukazu Shimizu, a senior economist at Aozora Bank Ltd, said the jobless rate could rise to as much as 6.5 percent this year.
■ Software
Microsoft signs China deal
Microsoft Corp is aiming to secure a place for its software in the world's largest market for mobile phones by signing a cooperation agreement with China's No. 2 mobile operator. Under the deal, Microsoft will use its software to help China United Telecommunications Corp develop new, data-focused services for its 207 million subscribers. A memorandum of agreement was to be signed yesterday in Beijing by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and China United Telecom president Wang Jianzhou. The agreement, for which financial terms weren't disclosed, is Microsoft's latest step to gain a piece of the next-generation mobile market, in which phones are used for sending e-mails, pictures and music. The effort faces stiff opposition from traditional mobile-phone makers, such as Finland's Nokia Corp.
■ Retailing
Sogo, Seibu study merger
Sogo Co, a Japanese department store operator which emerged from bankruptcy last month, and struggling Seibu Department Stores Ltd may merge in June to create Japan's second-largest department store operator. "I am considering merging the two companies under a holding company as early as June," Sogo President Shigeaki Wada said at a press conference. A combined Sogo-Seibu Department Stores will rank second to Takashimaya Co by sales. It would still have to improve operations and finances, say some analysts. The two companies already have a business alliance: Seibu, which this week received a ¥230 billion (US$1.95 billion) bailout from creditors, initially helped Sogo to improve operations after Sogo filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2000 with group liabilities of ¥1.87 trillion.
■ Restructuring
Saito to head revival agency
Atsushi Saito, a former vice president of Nomura Securities Co, will head the government agency tasked with helping debt-laden companies back to health. Saito, 63, joined Japan's largest brokerage in 1963 and had spells running its fixed-income division and working for Nomura International Inc in New York. Dokkyo University's Shinjiro Takagi will lead a committee within the Industrial Revitalization Corp that will decide which companies can be saved, the Cabinet Office said in a statement. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made cleaning up ¥52.4 trillion (US$434 billion) of bad loans at Japanese banks a cornerstone of his program to revive the world's No. 2 economy.
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