■Currencies
Dollar's decline is fine
The dollar fell to its weakest against the euro in more than four years after Treasury Secretary John Snow suggested the US isn't concerned with the dollar's 21 percent slide in the past 12 months. Snow yesterday told ABC television's This Week program the decline in the dollar "helps exports, and I think exports are getting stronger as a result." The US currency slid to US$1.1559 per euro at 2:20pm in Tokyo from US$1.1487 late in New York May 9. It traded as low as US$1.578, its weakest since January 1999. The dollar also fell to ?116.86 from ?117.40. "The fact that Snow seemed to endorse the dollar's level, saying it was good for exports, is something we haven't heard before," said Paul McNee, chief currency trader at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.
■ Retailing
US stores have tiny gains
Target Corp, Kohl's Corp and other US retailers are expected to report the smallest quarterly profit gain in 18 months after blizzards, the war in Iraq and rising unemployment suppressed sales. First-quarter profit probably increased 3.2 percent, according to a Thomson Financial survey of analysts' estimates for 137 retailers. That's down from 26 percent a year earlier and is the lowest since the third quarter of 2001, when retailers were coping with the aftereffects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Ken Perkins, a Thomson Financial analyst. Many US retailers operate on a February to April quarter and will release results this week. Several stores have already said profits fell after snowstorms shut stores in February and shoppers stayed home to watch televised coverage of the war.
■ Trade barriers
China takes on dumpers
China said it will require importers of polyvinyl-chloride, or PVC, to pay extra charges for all shipments of the material from the US, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan to protect domestic producers from cheaper imports. Domestic producers charged that companies such as LG Chem Ltd, South Korea's largest chemical maker, and Formosa Plastics Corp, Taiwan's biggest PVC maker, are selling products in China below production cost, a practice known as dumping, causing losses to local producers. Importers are now required to pay cash deposits to the Ministry of Commerce for each PVC shipment from the areas named. The deposit will be returned if the importer proves the product doesn't violate anti-dumping laws. PVC is a resin used in a wide variety of manufactured products, including pipes, cables, rainwear, window frames and floor tiles.
■ Fiscal policy
Workers lose pay for Bush
President Bush planned to speak yesterday at a plastics factory in Omaha, Nebraska, to sell his message that his tax-cut plan will put money in workers' pockets. But some workers at the Airlite Plastics factory are comp-laining that Bush's speech will have the opposite effect. They are unhappy because Airlite's chief executive, Brad Crosby, has announced that about 340 hourly workers will lose all or part of a day's pay unless they work to make up the time lost when the plant closes for the speech. Crosby told the workers that they would have four options when the plant is closed for one and a half shifts: make up the work on Saturday, use a vacation day, work a regular shift at a nearby Airlite plant that will stay open during Bush's visit or take an unpaid day off.
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
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