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World Business Quick Take

■ 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."
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