■ Real Estate
HK luxury sales revive
A luxury house has sold for HK$170 million (US$21.8 million), making big headlines yesterday and suggesting the upper end of the real estate market might be back. Hong Kong newspapers said the 740m2 house in the exclusive Peak residential area includes a wide array of amenities, including one bathroom larger than many local apartments -- at 67.5m2.) The European-style property is also complete with a swimming pool and massive garden and was snapped up over the weekend by "an entrepreneur" who has not been publicly named. Two other houses in the same development have gone for high prices over the past two months from the real estate company controlled by billionaire Richard Li (李澤楷), a son of Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), newspapers said.
■ Wage reform
Singapore gives incentives
Companies in Singapore should move to restructure wages and increase variable pay to take advantage of state-backed incentives, Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen said. The city's government is encouraging companies to pay variable wages linked to productivity, rather than seniority, to avoid mass retrenchments during economic recessions and compete with cheaper labor in other Southeast Asian countries. Under an ongoing campaign, companies get much of their wage-restructuring costs paid for by the state, and the government also helps arrange union, training and human resources support. The government is promoting wage restructuring as it predicts the economy may register double-digit growth this year for the first time in a decade, making Singapore the fastest-growing of Asia's 12 biggest economies.
■ Electronics
Toshiba sets sales target
Toshiba Corp aims to triple sales of DVD recorders, flat-panel televisions and other audio-visual products, making the category the next "pillar" business for Japan's second-biggest chipmaker. "With the full implementation of digital broadcasting by 2011, we will see a new wave of demand," Tadashi Okamura, Toshiba's president, said at a news conference in Tokyo. "We are now focusing on audio visual products." Sales from the division are expected to reach ¥1.5 trillion (US$13.4 billion) in the year ending March 31, 2011, up from this year's estimate of ¥490 billion, the company said. Tokyo-based Toshiba targets taking a fifth of the domestic television market and 13 percent of the overseas market by fiscal 2010. Toshiba last month began selling notebook computers with visual and audio capabilities it says are equal to or better than that of televisions.
■ Security
Encryption advance made
It's a hacker's nightmare but a dream for bankers and spies: A computer network so secure that even the simplest attempts to eavesdrop will interrupt the flow of data and alert administrators to the snooping. The work by researchers at Harvard University, Boston University and BBN Technologies is the closest scientists have come to a real-world quantum encryption system that uses light particles called photons to lock and unlock information instead of random-number ``keys.'' Using the technology, the scientists can swap data, send e-mail and visit one another's Web sites as their data is protected.
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