■ Chipmaking
Equipment orders up
Japanese manufacturers' orders for chip-making equipment more than doubled last month, the eighth consecutive monthly gain as demand grows in Asia. Orders rose to ¥142 billion (US$1.32 billion) from ¥60 billion in January last year, the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan said. The figures are preliminary, and the association will announce revised figures later the month. Growing demand for computers and consumer electronics goods such as DVD recorders and digital cameras is prompting Samsung Electronics Co and other chipmakers to boost spending on factories to build more advanced chips. Global semiconductor supplies may exceed demand next year, Stan Myers, head of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, a US-based industry group, said this week.
■ Chipmaking
India gets new investment
STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, announced on Thursday that it will spend US$100 million on two design centers in India to cash in on the country's large, cheap but highly educated workforce. The company, which is based in Geneva, plans to set up a center in Bangalore and is buying land on the outskirts of New Delhi for another, which will become the company's largest such facility outside Europe. "The ultimate capacity will be 5,000 people in five or six years, but the near-term program is to reach 3,000 people by end-2006," the company's president, Pasquale Pistorio, said. STMicro was one of the first companies to spot India's potential, opening its first R&D center in 1990.
■ Networks
Cisco admits switch flaw
Cisco Systems Inc, the world's largest maker of equipment to link computers, for the second time in a year announced a flaw in its switches for telephone networks that would let a hacker disable the devices. The flaw in some of Cisco's ONS switches that transmit calls lets chips and software that control the device be disrupted, forcing a machine to reboot and drop phone traffic, San Jose, California-based Cisco said on its Web site. The company posted a notice in May about another security flaw in that product. The risk of attacks from the Internet is limited because machines with the switches are usually run on private data networks, the company said. A newer release of Cisco's operating system software prevents such attacks, Cisco said.
■ Enron
Former CEO enters plea
Former Enron Corp chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with nearly three dozen counts of fraud, insider trading and other crimes in the highest-reaching indictment yet stemming from Enron's colossal collapse. Skilling, the top-ranking executive arrested so far in the scandal that shook Wall Street and Washington alike, was accused Thursday of participating in widespread schemes to mislead government regulators and investors about the company's earnings. "I plead not guilty to all counts," Skilling told US Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy, who set bond at US$5 million. Skilling posted the bond with a cashier's check. Prosecutors said Skilling, 50, faces up to 325 years in prison and more than US$80 million in fines if convicted of all counts. Another court appearance to address trial scheduling is set for March 11.
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