■ Semiconductor
Chipmakers join forces
Toshiba Corp, Texas Instruments Inc and six other companies are working with a Stanford University research group in California to develop a new generation of semiconductor tech-nology, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The group, which also includes Tokyo Electron Ltd, Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (台積電), is seeking to make chips with capacities that are 30 times the current level, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the infor-mation. The group will spend ?400 million (US$3.36 million) to develop the new chip, which it hopes to sell by 2012, the report said. Germanium will be used as a replacement for silicon to make the chip, the paper said.
■ Tourism
Number of HK tourists leaps
A total of 1.3 million visitors came to Hong Kong last month, 79 percent more than the previous month when the former British colony was still reeling from the effects of SARS, which killed 299 people and infected 1,755. The city is now struggling to find mid-range and budget hotel rooms for the influx of tourists, the majority of whom come from China on low-cost package deals. News of the leap in tourist arrivals comes a week after HK's Airport Authority announced that nearly 2.5 million passengers had passed through the airport last month, twice as many as in June. HK's tourism industry was crippled between March and June when new SARS cases were being discovered every day and the World Health Authority (WHO) advised travelers not to visit the city. The WHO lifted its travel advisory in June.
■ Alternate fuels
Quantum goes to Japan
Quantum Fuel System Technologies Worldwide Inc, a fifth owned by General Motors Corp, plans to set up a company in Japan by 2005, the < ■ Automobiles China to release plan China will soon release a new auto-industry policy to prevent over-investment and improve technical standards, state-run newspapers reported yesterday. China aspires to nurture a world-class auto industry, and has been planning to consolidate its more than 120 mostly smaller car makers into a handful of internationally competitive larger ones. Details of the new policies, announced by the Xinhua News Agency and carried in the Shanghai Youth Daily and other newspapers, were not given. Foreign auto-makers have criticized a draft policy, circulating since May, contending that such changes would put them at a disadvantage by requiring technology transfers and limiting sales distribution rights. More than three-quarters of China's auto makers produce fewer than 10,000 vehicles a year.
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