■ Trade
S Korean firms move north
Within months, more than a dozen South Korean com-panies will set up shop in a long-delayed North Korean industrial park to take advantage of cheap labor there, Seoul's Trade Minister Hwang Doo-yun said on Saturday. Hwang said the Kaesong Industrial Complex project just north of the demilitarized zone Pyong-yangwas suddenly more viable due to an agreement struck on Saturday in economic talks in Pyong-yang to reopen railway and road connections severed 50 years ago. He said more than 600 companies have expressed interest in invest-ing in the North, which has begun to introduce market reforms in an effort to revive an economy shat-tered after a succession of natural disasters worsened by mismanagement.
■ China
Cellphone use booms
One in four Chinese people will have a mobile phone by the end of the year, as the world's most populous country consolidates its status as the largest cell market, state media said yesterday. By later this year, it is expected that 24.5 percent of the people, or about 320 million, will own a cellular phone, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Ministry of Information Industry. In the first four months of this year, China's mobile phone users rose by 27.1 million people to 295.8 million, Xinhua said. Cellphones account for about half of all operating revenue in China's telecom industry, with short message and wireless Internet services seen as important growth sectors, the agency said.
■ Banking
Japanese clean up loans
Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Heizo Takenaka said yesterday that the Japanese economy has entered a final stage of bad loan disposal. Several banks are still suffering sizable bad loans, "but overall situations have changed," Takenaka said in a TV interview. "Japan is now facing the last hurdle of bad loan disposal." Last month, three of the biggest banks, including Mizuho Financial Group, reported spectacular returns to profit in the year to March after they aggres-sively tackled the problem. But UFJ Holdings Inc, still under pressure, announced a net loss of ?402.8 billion (US$3.6 billion) in sharp contrast to a profit of ?78 billion yen it projected in April. Takenaka said UFJ could even speed up bad loan disposal by asking for the cooperation of the Industrial Revitalization Corp of Japan, a govern-ment body designed to help troubled companies.
■ Gambling
MGM Mirage bids for rival
The casino group MGM Mirage has made a US$4.85 billion offer to acquire rival Mandalay Resort Group in a bid to create the US' biggest gambling empire. Mandalay said in a statement it would review MGM Mirage's offer, which was announced late on Friday. MGM Mirage offered to buy its rival for US$68 per share in a US$4.85 billion cash trans-action and assume a US$2.8 billion debt, bringing the total offer to around US$7.65 billion. MGM Mirage already owns the MGM Grand, Bellagio, Treasure Island and New York-New York hotels. If the offer is accepted, MGM Mirage would add to its roster the luxurious Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, giving the group three of the biggest hotels in Nevada gambling mecca. Mandalay Resort also owns the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel and the medieval-themed Excalibur Hotel and Casino.
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
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
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