■ Talks to begin this week
Japan expects to launch formal talks on free-trade agreements with three Southeast Asian nations this week, Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said yesterday, in a move to catch up with other countries that have such pacts. Japan will host a meeting of leaders from the 10-member ASEAN on Thursday and Friday, the first time for the gathering to be held in a non-ASEAN country. "We expect to be able to launch formal talks on free-trade agreements [FTAs] with Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia at the summit," Nakagawa said in an interview. "Japan, as a nation without resources, is a country built on trade, and in that sense, we are falling behind. Not having concluded free-trade agreements could become a handicap."
■ Electronics
PSX to have fewer features
Sony Corp said yesterday it ran out of time for testing its new PSX product that fuses PlayStation 2 with an analog TV tuner, DVD player and digital photo album -- and must scale back some of the promised features for the machine's debut next weekend. The PSX version to be released Saturday will dub videos at only half the planned speed, and cannot play rewritable DVDs or recordable CDs, Sony said. It also won't process MP3 music files as had been promised by the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant in October. "We had to drop some functions but it's just for now," said Hiroaki Komatsu, a spokesman for Sony Marketing Japan. The PSX, about the size of the PlayStation 2, is set to go on sale in Japan on Saturday for ?79,800 (US$720) for a version with a 160-gigabyte hard drive and ?99,800 (US$900) for a 250-gigabyte model.
■ Environment
Fujitsu to open local base
Japan's Fujitsu Ltd will set up bases in Taiwan and China to support and promote its green procurement policy, a leading Japanese financial daily reported yesterday. According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Fujitsu will set up an ecology management center at its sales subsidiary in Taiwan today staffed with workers from its environmental management, research and development and personal computer-related departments. A similar base will be set up in Hong Kong to provide technical support to eliminating the use of heavy metals and other toxic compounds in its products by the end of March 2005. Since Fujitsu depends on manufacturers in Asia for many of the core components of its computers and telecommunications equipment, it plans to use these bases to study the situation, switch procurement to firms that meet its green standards and provide technical assistance so that companies can use alternate materials, the report said. Fujitsu will also create a base in Shanghai to conduct surveys on regional parts makers, the report said.
■ Mobile Phones
Global sales jump 22%
Global mobile-phone sales jumped 22 percent in the third quarter as consumers upgraded to more advanced handsets and amid surging demand in markets such as India, Russia and China, researcher Gartner Inc said. The industry sold 132.8 million phones in the quarter, up from 108.8 million in the year-earlier period, Gartner said in an e-mailed statement. Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc, the two biggest handset makers, lost market share to No. 3 Samsung Electronics Co and No. 4 Siemens AG.
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