■ Airlines
Buy air tickets near home
Head to your local convenience store to grab a cup of coffee, pick up a pint of ice cream and don't forget to pay for your plane ticket. Thailand's newest budget airline, Nok Air, is not only offering discount flights, it is also offering a novel way to pay for the tickets -- at the local 7-Eleven. After booking a ticket through Nok's call center, the flight can be paid for within 24 hours to confirm the seat at a participating 7-Eleven counter. Travelers must bring a pay code to verify the booking and are charged a 30-baht (US$0.73) fee. The first flights on Nok's two Boeing 737-400s departed July 22 to Chiang Mai, Udon Thani and Hat Yai. Passengers on Nok, which means bird in Thai, can also transfer their payments via ATM machines at Siam Commercial Banks (for a 20-baht fee) or pay by credit card online and through its call center.
■ Technology
Foldable screens in works
Foldable computer screens and other large flexible light-emitting displays could soon become reality because of work by experts from Singapore and Britain, a newspaper reported yesterday. The National University of Singapore (NUS) and Sir Richard Friend of Cambridge University are seeking to develop materials called organic polymers that behave like semiconductors and metals to produce the products, the Straits Times said. "We hope to develop key science and technology that will make possible devices that can't be produced with what is currently available," NUS Assistant Professor Peter Ho was quoted as saying. Such devices could include large flexible posters that emit light and respond to customers walking near them or inexpensive flexible screens for televisions and computers that fold up be pocketed, he said.
■ Outsourcing
Indian editors analyze US
Financial news and information provider Reuters Group plans to outsource as many as 20 editorial jobs to India from more expensive locations around the world, a company spokeswoman said on Monday. Reuters will hire up to 40 trained journalists to staff a new newsroom in Bangalore to take over these editorial duties and to expand output for the company's news service. They will focus primarily on providing information about small and medium-sized firms that are publicly traded in the US, spokeswoman Susan Allsopp said in London. The new employees will compile tables of financial data to accompany longer stories written elsewhere. Reuters already employs 300 people in Bangalore at a separate center for the collation of financial market data.
■ Interest Rates
Fed increase expected
US Federal Reserve policymakers were widely expected to raise interest rates yesterday despite last week's dismal employment news, if only to avoid fanning financial market jitters about stumbling growth. "Given the mind-set in the markets that another increase is coming, the Fed is unlikely to wish to disrupt that expectation at this stage," said economist Lynn Reaser of Banc of America Capital Management Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri. "There might in fact be a greater risk to the economy in the Fed's holding back, simply because to do so would raise questions about what does the Fed know about the expansion's health," she said.
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