■Chipmakers
Motorola urges mergers
Motorola Inc said semiconductor makers must merge to revive the industry, the Financial Times reported on its Web site, citing Ray Burgess, director of strategy and marketing at the company's chip unit. Chipmakers' annual sales fell 30 percent to US$140 billion in 2001 and have since shown little sign of recovery, according to the FT. Motorola said last month revenue this year will be less than it had forecast excluding a benefit from an accounting change, partly because of "slightly lower order input and sales" in the chip market. "This is an industry that is not heading down the path of consolidation. It needs to," Burgess said, according to the FT. "It has to happen, the question is who will be first."
■ Internet
PCCW bids for UK licenses
PCCW Ltd, Hong Kong's biggest phone company, applied to bid for 15 broadband wireless licenses in the UK after chief executive officer Richard Li scrapped plans to buy phone and Web operator Cable & Wireless Plc. PCCW may seek permits to offer wireless Internet access in seven cities and eight districts in the UK, spokeswoman Joan Wagner said. The company will decide whether it will actually bid for the licenses after working out detailed costs of setting up the network. "We have put in an application for the auction but our financial exposure is nil," Wagner said, responding to a report in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday. PCCW is seeking ways to establish an overseas market after Cable & Wireless rebuffed an invitation for talks.
■ Economics
Putin touts ties in Europe
Russia and the other former states of the Soviet Union must "work towards the creation of a common economic area with Europe," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. Putin, speaking at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma, said this would be a prominent topic at a EU-Russia summit on May 31 in Saint Petersburg, also to be attended by the leaders of other nations in the 12-member Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi, whose country takes over the EU presidency in July, has vowed to push for closer ties between the 15-nation bloc with Moscow. Berlusconi believes that bringing in Russia and other CIS states would turn the EU into a superpower on an equal footing with the US.
■ Australia
Opposition attacks US pact
Australia's opposition Labor Party stepped up its attacks on a proposed US-Australia free-trade deal yesterday after US President George W. Bush promised Prime Minister John Howard free trade for Christmas. During a visit by Howard to the president's Texas ranch, an effusive Bush lavished praise on Australia for its support in the Iraq war and in gratitude set a personal deadline for a historic free-trade pact by the end of the year. "Australia came to America's aid in our time of need and I won't forget that," Bush told reporters. However, the opposition's trade spokesman Craig Emerson echoed the view of numerous Australian economists that a free-trade agreement with the US would leave Australians worse off. He said the US would expect too many concessions and fail to open its markets to Australian farmers. "There won't be free trade between the two countries," Emerson said.
Agencies
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft