■ Automotives
China targets counterfeiters
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and five other car-markers won a key piracy ruling after China signaled its intention to prosecute a glass factory for making counterfeit windscreens, the South China Morning Post said yesterday, without saying where it got the information. The Guang-dong provincial prosecutor overturned three earlier rulings by local prosecutors who had refused to crack down on Jieyang Kentong Automobile Glass Factory, the report said. Thousands of fake windscreens were seized in raids between 1999 and 2001, it said. Counter-feit parts cost the US vehicle industry US$12 billion a year, according to US estimates, the report said. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world's No. 2 luxury carmaker, said Asian sales rose 19 percent to a record last year, helped by increased demand in China where sales almost tripled to 18,679 vehicles.
■ Transportation
FedEx to stay in Philippines
FedEx Corp, the world's biggest overnight package-delivery company, will sign an agreement this month to keep its Asia-Pacific hub in the Philippines instead of moving it to Guangzhou, Clark International Airport Corp president Adelberto Yap said yesterday. The cargo carrier will lease as much as 50 hectares at the former US Air Force base for 25 years, Yap said. FedEx will start operations at Clark in two years, before a lease at the former US Navy base Subic Bay expires in 2009, Yap said. FedEx will be the second package delivery company to have its Asian hub at Clark. United Parcel Service has another 50 hectares there. State-owned Clark Inter-national controls 2,700 hectares of the 5,400 former base. FedEx has won tax and other concessions from the Philippines government, the South China Morning Post said on Wednesday.
■ Software
Sun targets consumers
Sun Microsystems Inc's version of the Linux operating system is now available on personal com-puters sold on the Wal-Mart Stores Inc Web site. It's the first time Sun's software has been made available on computers for consumers, reports said. Sun previously targeted its desktop Linux project at companies, coun-tries and schools. Microtel PCs with Sun's Java Desk-top System, which start at US$298, include StarOffice, Sun's alternative to Micro-soft Office. Wal-Mart started selling Microtel computers with the Lindows operating system in 2002 and offers other Linux variants, Lycoris and Linare Linux. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said Window-based systems are still the most popular, although customer response to the Linux systems has exceeded the company's expectations.
■ Communications
Spammers eye IM services
A new form of Internet spam, this time aimed at users of instant messaging (IM) services, is set to explode, the New Scientist warns in today's issue. The phenomenon has been dubbed "spim" by experts, who reckon that this year 1.2 billion unsolicited messages will be sent over IM services run by Yahoo, MSN and other companies, and the volume will triple next year. Seventy percent of "spim" is pornography related. Unlike email, IM software allows users to exchange messages in real time. "This makes spim more insidious than spam because the messages pop up automatically, giving the recipient no chance of deleting them," the British weekly notes.
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