■Shipping
FedEx's profits rising
FedEx Corp, the world's largest overnight-delivery company, said profit rose 19 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter after delivering more packages to homes. Net income rose to US$280 million, or US$0.92 a share, in the quarter ended May 31 from US$236 million, or US$0.78, a year earlier. FedEx has been gaining in the ground delivery market dominated by United Parcel Service Inc since adding service to homes in 2000. The combined air and truck business at FedEx shipped 400,000 copies of the new Harry Potter book for clients such as Amazon.com Inc on the Saturday debut, founder and chief executive officer Fred Smith said on a conference call. FedEx repeated earlier forecasts for fiscal first-quarter profit of between US$0.52 and US$0.60 a share.
■ Telecom
Opposition to Telstra sale
Australia's government will increase spending on rural phone services to try to stop opponents from blocking plans to sell its stake in Telstra Corp, valued by the market at A$28.7 billion (US$19 billion), in the next three years. Plans to sell the 50.1 percent stake of Australia's biggest phone company will be tested as soon as this week when the government introduces a law allowing the sale. It will spend A$181 million improving Telstra's service, responding to recomm-endations from farmers who want to ensure that Telstra will keep improving Internet and phone services. The law may be blocked in the Senate, where the opposition Labor party and indep-endents have a majority, thwarting government plans to pay most of its A$32 billion of debt. The ruling Liberal party may call an early election, due before April 2005, to force the sale through.
■ Real estate
Siemens plans development
Siemens AG, Germany's largest engineering company, will spend 100 million euros (US$115 million) expanding its Frankfurt branch to add offices and apartments for up to 8,000 people, Frank-furter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, without saying from where it got the information. The project, which also includes a new park, a hotel and a kinder-garten, will cost 600 million euros in total and three investors, including the German real-estate company IVG Immobilien AG, will contribute the remaining sum, the paper said. The expansion underscores Siemens' efforts to improve commercial use of company real estate, the paper said. The company is already adding offices and apart-ments to it's venue in Munich and plans a similar expan-sion at the Erlangen branch.
■ Telecom
UK firm sued for fraud
Cable & Wireless Plc, a UK-based phone company, is accused of misleading investors by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Canada's No. 2 pension-fund manager, the London-based Times reported, citing court papers in a class-action lawsuit filed in Virginia. The fund-manager claims that C&W took part in improper exchanges of network capacity with US operators Qwest Communications International Inc and Global Crossing Ltd to inflate its revenue, the newspaper said. Ontario Teachers seeks unspecified damages for aggrieved investors who bought C&W shares between August 1999 and December 2002, the Times said. C&W's annual report, published last week, said the company will "vigor-ously defend" itself against the suit, and C&W reiterated that stance yesterday, the paper said.
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