■ Internet
Australia to fine spammers
Organizations sending unsolicited junk e-mail, known as "spam," may face heavy fines under new legislation tabled in Australia's federal parliament yesterday, Communications Minister Richard Alston said. The fines, which may reach more than A$1 million (US$650,000) a day, will only apply to e-mails originating within Australia. Alston said the problem had become so serious it required tough action, or spammers could overwhelm the Internet. "A couple of years ago spam was a nuisance. Now it's an absolute menace," he told national radio. "You've got something like 5 billion spam messages a day. "More than half of all e-mails comprise spam, and unless we do something very serious about it then it's going to overwhelm the way in which the Internet and information technology operates."
■ Media
AOL to sell Warner music
AOL Time Warner Inc may auction its recorded-music business after talks to merge it with Bertelsmann AG's music unit nearly broke down, the Wall Street Journal said, without saying where it obtained the information. AOL will likely decide today whether to sell Warner Music, according to the paper. The unit is valued at about US$1 billion, and the company's music-publishing business, which hadn't been included in the Bertelsmann talks, is worth about the same amount, the Journal said. The business may interest UK-based competitor EMI Group Plc, which renewed an earlier offer to buy the unit for US$1 billion, with AOL gaining a 25 percent stake in the com-bined EMI-Warner Music, the paper said, citing a person familiar with the deal.
■ Piracy
Verizon blasts RIAA
Verizon Communications Inc and SBC Communications Inc executives told Congress that the recording industry's use of subpoenas to combat music piracy violates personal privacy and threatens Internet growth. A federal court decision earlier this year that upheld the industry's use of subpoenas "has truly created a Franken-stein monster that Congress never contem-plated," Verizon General Counsel William Barr told the Senate Commerce Committee. Verizon and SBC, the two biggest local telephone companies, are Internet service providers that have received more than 1,000 recording-industry subpo-enas. These subpoenas seek names of customers susp-ected of downloading pirated songs and providing them to others online. Music comp-anies say piracy has cost them US$700 million in sales in the first half of the year.
■ Shipping
UPS plans China expansion
United Parcel Service (UPS), a US-based delivery and logistics company, said yesterday it plans to operate more flights between China and the US as part of its bid to incorporate Shanghai into its global network. UPS president David Abney said the company's China business grew 45 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with a global average growth of 6.2 percent, and three times higher than the growth forecast for the entire Asia-Pacific region in that period. If UPS's business continues to grow and the company is unable to launch more flights, the current flight load will not be able to meet capacity, Abney said in a statment. The transportation services giant, which moved its China headquarters to Shanghai from Hong Kong in July, currently operates 24 weekly services to and from Shanghai.
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
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