■Telecom
Public Web access planned
Verizon Communications Inc, the largest US local-telephone services provider, plans to equip some of its more than 300,000 public telephones with wireless Web access, to boost its position as an Internet provider, the Washington Post reported. The move is the latest in a series of steps that Verizon is taking to compete with high-speed Internet services offered by cable-television providers, the Post said. The company recently announced it will cut monthly rates for high-speed Internet access by as much as 40 percent and expand the reach of its digital subscriber-line, or DSL, service. Verizon has about 1.3 million DSL customers, trailing cable companies including Comcast Corp, with about 4 million broadband subscribers, and AOL Time Warner Inc's Time Warner Cable with about 2.7 million.
■ Philanthropy
Gates calls for AIDS action
Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates said in a televised interview that capitalism is failing to curb diseases such as AIDS that kill millions around the world. "You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done," Gates said in interview with PBS's Now With Bill Moyers. "But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it's really let us down." Gates, who has a net worth of US$40.7 billion, is the world's richest person, according to Forbes magazine. He pledged US$200 million in January to help accelerate research on AIDS, malaria and other diseases. "How we deal with the AIDS epidemic should be one of the greatest ways that the world gets measured, the report card for this era these next few decades," Gates said.
■ Automotive
Japan, EU join efforts
Japan and the EU will work together to set the standard for next-generation auto technologies, including fuel cells and intelligent transportation systems (ITS), a report said yesterday. They will cooperate with Japanese and European auto makers to produce auto techno--logies up to standards set by the International Organ-ization for Standardization (ISO), the Yomiuri Shimbun said. ISO, a non-governmental organization, is the world's largest developer of standards with its principal activity of developing technical standards. With a tie-up with the EU, Japan hopes to better compete with the US in the field of next-generation auto tech-nologies, the daily said. By 2005, Japan and the EU hope to win an approval from ISO for their fuel-cell technologies, it said.
■ Fiscal policy
France to freeze spending
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has written to Cabinet members, confirming his decision to freeze state spending for next year at this year's levels. "The government mustn't spend a euro more in 2004," Raffarin wrote in a letter dated May 7 and quoted in Le Monde newspaper on Saturday. The European Commission has called for France to take urgent action to trim its ballooning public deficit or face multi-million euro fines. Raffarin earlier told members of parliament that any new spending should be financed by cuts elsewhere. "If we want to give society some breathing space, the state must have a somewhat rigorous budget discipline," Le Monde quoted him as saying.
Agencies
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