■ Labor
Musicians continue strike
Musicians on strike against the use of taped music on Broadway kept New York theaters in the dark for a third day Sunday in a costly standoff dealing the local tourist industry yet another blow. Among the shows affected were long-running hits like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, The Lion King and Rent. "Who wants to sing karaoke?" asked Lucille Decristofaro, who sang in a Broadway production of Les Miserables. "The whole point of Broadway is live music, a sound you can only get live." The stoppage shuttered 18 musicals and three more in rehearsals after actors and stagehands surprised producers by observing the musicians' picket line on Friday night. Cabaret is the only Broadway musical still on stage, due to its separate arrangement with the union.
■ E-government
Giants target Asia-Pacific
An alliance between Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft is targeting the burgeoning Asia-Pacific e-government market, a spokesman said in a published report yesterday. The Keystone Alliance is seeking to enter the e-government domain in a big way in the region, said Jason Fedder, Intel Asia-Pacific's director. He told the Business Times the alliance, set up in December 2001 by the IT giants, plans to deliver affordable e-government solutions. The trio initially targeted the financial industry, offering solutions to leading banking and capital markets in the Asia-Pacific area. Ambitious e-government strategies have been launched with China, Australia and Singapore.
■ Employment
EADS to cut 1,700 jobs
European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co, the primary owner of Airbus SAS, plans to cut an additional 1,700 jobs by 2005 as it reorganizes its space operations, La Tribune said, citing unidentified union officials. The job cuts will be shared between France, Germany and the UK, the French daily said. Seven hundred people will leave the company this year and next year, while the departures of a further 1,000, scheduled for 2005, will be announced in three months, the newspaper said. The French company will cut 1,600 jobs in 2002-2003.
■ Matchmaking
Resumes of females sold
Businesses in Shandong, China, have been caught selling the resumes of attractive female job applicants to a matchmaking agency, a news report said yesterday. The dating agency paid between 30 and 100 yuan (US$3.60 to US$12) for each resume and passed them on to clients seeking marriageable girls. A police investigation was launched after several girls reported receiving pestering phone calls from strangers, the South China Morning Post reported.
■ Crude oil
OPEC pumping at capacity
UAE oil minister Obaid Al-Nasseri said yesterday that it would be difficult for OPEC to increase production as the 11-nation group is already at almost full capacity. "I think everybody is producing almost about" full capacity, Al-Nasseri told reporters when he arrived in Vienna for a meeting today of the OPEC. Key oil producers Venezuela and Algeria said here Sunday they believed OPEC had enough room for manoeuvre to avoid a supply shortage in the event of a US-led war on Iraq. Al-Nasseri said: "We have to consider the fundamentals of the market before we think about the war."
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)