■ Hotel occupancy
Rate plummets in Malaysia
Hotel occupancy in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor has halved after companies canceled events and tourists stayed away because of a deadly virus, the New Straits Times said. The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, led to the conferences being scrapped and kept tourists away. There are also fewer visitors from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan because of restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease, the report said, citing Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn. Occupancy rates in hotels in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor are at 33 percent, against 65 percent before the outbreak, the paper said, citing Fong.
■ MicrochipS
Sony to invest in plant
Sony Corp, the world's largest maker of game consoles, and its game unit will invest ¥50 billion (US$417 million) in a ¥200 billion Toshiba Corp microchip factory, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported, without citing anyone. Sony is still in talks with Toshiba regarding its investment in the plant, said Kei Sakaguchi, a Sony spokesman. Toshiba Vice President Yasuo Morimoto, asked about the newspaper report, said he could not say how much Sony would invest. Sony, Toshiba and International Business Machines Corp are jointly developing a new microchip called "Cell," which Sony's game unit said it will use for the successor of PlayStation2.
■ Internet
Data transfer record broken
US scientists have broken the record for the top speed for transferring data over the Internet. The magazine Nature reported in its online edition that a new piece of software allows data to be transferred up to 3,500 times faster than normal over broadband connections. That type of speed can ultimately make it possible to download a DVD film from the Internet in fewer than five seconds. "We hope that we will be able to publish a first version of the software this summer," said Steven Low, one of the researchers. Low and other scientists from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena hope to offer the software for free over the Internet. The "bottleneck" in the transfer of data over the World Wide Web comes from the Internet protocol TCP, the report claims.
■ Photography
Ricoh goes totally digital
Japan's Ricoh will stop making traditional film-loaded cameras by March 2004 and shift its focus to popular digital cameras, a newspaper said yesterday. The Japanese office equipment manufacturer made the decision after the growing popularity of digital cameras pushed its film camera sector into the red, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said, quoting company sources. Ricoh's twin-lens reflex camera became hugely popular among photography buffs shortly after the end of World War II. But Ricoh's share of the overall domestic market is less than one percent, much lower than the shares of cameras manufactured by its rival Canon and Nikon, the business daily said. Ricoh, which has already ended development work for film cameras, will now focus its resources on digital cameras, Nihon Keizai said. The company's total camera sales, including those of digital models, totaled ¥10 billion in fiscal year to March 2003. Domestic film camera demand totaled some 2.2 million units last year, less than half the figure in the early 1990s.
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