■ Computer Chips
Hynix seeks cheaper price
Hynix Semiconductor Inc said it asked for a 16 per-cent reduction in the price of shares it buys back from stockholders opposed to an asset sale. Hynix wants to repurchase the stock for 9,561 won (US$8.26) a share, compared with an earlier offer of 11,376 won, after stockholders repre-senting about 17.6 million shares sought to sell, said James Kim, head of the Icheon-based company's investor relations team. South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service last week said it's obliged to allow a lower repurchase price if Hynix lodged a request at least 10 days before the payment dead-line on Sept. 13. Korean rules require companies to buy back shares from shareholders opposed to major asset sales and purchases.
■ Television
TCL's sales up 41 percent
TCL Corp, China's biggest publicly traded consumer-electronics maker that teamed up with France's Thomson SA to form the world's largest TV manu-facturer, said overseas TV sales surged 41 percent last month. Domestic TV sales rose to 615,200 sets from 480,449 a year ago, TCL said in a statement to the Shen-zhen Stock Exchange. Exports jumped to 490,433 sets from 347,052, it said. TTE Corp., the venture between TCL and Thomson, last month forecast US$4 billion of sales this year, 14 percent higher than the combined sales before their DVD and television units were merged in April.
■ Pharmaceuticals
Novartis invests in Asia
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis said yesterday it would invest US$180 million in a new production facility in Singapore, boosting the city-state's goal of becoming a regional biomedical hub. Novartis said that its new plant would begin operating by 2007 and produce "tab-lets for the global market." It did not elaborate. Novar-tis, one of the world's largest drug companies, has recently put money into two other facilities in Singapore: a tropical diseases center and an offshoot of its eye product unit. Singapore said it aims to double its bio-medical industry output by 2014.
■ Economies
Terrorism costing the US
Terrorism poses the biggest short-term threat to the US economy, a panel of top business economists said in a survey released yesterday. They called on whoever is elected president on Nov. 2 to devote the biggest share of his time to the menace. A quarterly survey of 172 members of the National Association of Business Economists found the risk of terrorism moving sharply up the agenda of Corporate America. Forty percent of respondents in this month's survey said terrorism was the biggest short-term risk for the US economy, up from 19 percent in the previous survey in March. The budget deficit was chosen by 23 percent of respondents as the main economic threat.
■ Insurance
Charley could cost US$14bn
Insured losses from Hurricane Charley could total as much as US$10 billion to US$$14 billion, according to industry estimates released as insurers fielded thousands of claims from hard-hit Florida residents. Insurance companies face losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But the blow for both insurers and their customers is expected to be cushioned by the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which Florida set up in the 1990s.
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