■ Asian Trade
Japan boosts Asia exports
Japanese exports to Asia hit a record high in July boosted by strong regional demand for equipment to make semiconductors and liquid crystal displays (LCDs), the Japanese finance ministry said yesterday. The trade surplus with Asia surged 62.9 percent to ?751.2 billion (US$6.8 billion), marking the 13th consecutive monthly rise, the ministry said. Asia-bound exports increased 21.2 percent to ?2.63 trillion, the highest since 1947, when the finance ministry started taking comparable data, a ministry official said. Imports from Asia rose 9.9 percent to ?1.88 trillion, he said. Japan's China-bound exports in July were worth ?716.8 billion, up 22 percent from the same month last year, while imports from China reached ?842.4 billion, up 12.5 percent year-on-year. However, some economists warned of a possible negative impact from Beijing's tightening policies to cool its overheating economy.
■ Poverty
Inequality growing in Asia
High economic growth helped Asia reduce poverty greatly in the past decade, but the increasingly unfair distribution of income could hamper future improvement, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned yesterday. The number of people living on less than US$1 a day in 20 developing nations across Asia fell by 233 million to 688 million between 1990 and 2002, representing 21.5 percent of the population, the ADB said. If the poverty threshold is set higher at US$2 a day, however, 1.91 billion people or 60 percent of developing Asia's population were poor in 2002. That figure compared with 2.02 billion or 75 percent of the population in 1990. "One worrisome element that we are witnessing in developing Asia is that ... this inequality is increasing over time," ADB chief economist Ifzal Ali said in Tokyo.
■ Automobiles
Mitsubishi mulls alliance
Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp is reviewing its alliance with Daimler-Chrysler, including cooperation in manufacturing mid-sized sedans, the company said yesterday. DaimlerChrysler decided in April not to invest more cash in Mitsubishi Motors to support the Japanese automaker's restructuring plan. The German-American company's stake in Mitsubishi has since shrunk to about 20 percent from 37 percent. Mitsubishi has issued new shares to the Mitsubishi group of companies and other investors to raise cash. Mitsubishi Motors said yesterday it would continue to cooperate with Daimler-Chrysler, but that "Regarding mid-sized sedans, we are considering a number of options regarding our alliance with DaimlerChrysler."
■ Energy
OPEC backs US$30 oil price
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries wants oil prices to fall faster to an ideal price of around US$30 a barrel, and will discuss whether to increase production at a meeting next month, the group's president said yesterday. ``Oil prices have retreated, but we want them to fall to around [US]$30 per barrel,'' Indonesia's Purnomo Yusgiantoro told reporters. US light sweet crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange have fallen nearly US$6 from a record high of almost US$50 a barrel last week. OPEC's current production ceiling, excluding Iraq, is around 26 million barrels a day.
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