■ Oil
Russian oil bid blocked
In Houston, a federal judge upheld an order that granted Russian oil giant Yukos a temporary injunc-tion halting the Moscow auction of its key produc-tion subsidiary. US District Judge Nancy Atlas late Saturday rejected an appeal from Russian state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom, which had sought to bid for Yukos in an auction in Russia. Yukos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday in Houston. The Yukos auction could have made Gazprom -- and by extension the Russian government -- one of Russia's biggest oil players virtually overnight. The Russian government planned to sell the subsi-diary, Yugansknef-tegaz, to pay off some of the US$27.5 billion in back taxes it says is owed by Yukos, Russia's largest oil producer. Russia had pledged to proceed with the auction, saying the US order is irrelevant on Russian soil.
■ Development
No final LCD-plant plans
Sharp Corp, Japan's biggest maker of liquid-crystal display panels, said it hasn't made a final decision regarding plans to build a new plant to make the devices. Sharp will spend as much as ?200 billion (US$1.9 billion) to build a so-called eighth-generation LCD plant that will start production in 2006, Nihon Keizai newspaper reported yesterday. The plant will be built at Sharp's facilities in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, in central Japan, the report said. "We are considering many alternatives for our new Kameyama plant, but no details have been decided yet," said Heiha-chiro Ochiai, a company spokesman based in Osaka.
■ Online Business
Auction-site boss in jail
The US is closely following the case of an Indian-born US businessman arrested after an Indian Internet auction site owned by eBay sold a student sex video, an embassy spokeswoman said yesterday. Avnish Bajaj, country manager of Baazee.com, was arrested after video compact discs showing a teenage girl and boy from a well-known Delhi private school engaged in oral sex were sold via his auction site. "The US embassy is following this case very closely and there is a high level of interest in Washington regarding this case," the spokeswoman said. On Saturday, a New Delhi city court ordered Bajaj to remain in custody for a week, saying the alleged offence did not warrant the granting of bail. Baazee.com in a statement released late on Saturday said the company was "outraged that the police have objected to the release of Avnish Bajaj. Baazee.com is an online marketplace -- a trading platform that offers buyers and sellers an opportunity to transact. Unlike a retailer, Baazee.com does not own or sell any of the goods that are listed on the site," it said.
■ Digital Products
New iPod to boost shares
Synaptics Inc, Sigmatel Inc and Audible Inc are among suppliers of components of Apple Computer Inc's iPod whose shares may be overvalued because of the popularity of the digital music player, Barron's reported. Rising competition will put greater pressure on the suppliers to lower prices and may hurt companies such as SigmaTel and PortalPlayer Inc, which get as much as 90 percent of their revenue from the iPod and other digital music players, Independent Research Group analyst Carter Driscoll told Barron's. Synaptics' touch-screen technology may become essential in digital products and its stock isn't "just an iPod play," Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff 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
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