■ Auto Industry
GM to reduce workers
General Motors Corp plans to offer another round of early retirement offers and buyout packages to US salaried workers early next year, the company said on Wednesday. GM, the world's largest automaker, declined to say how many of its roughly 38,000 US salaried employees would receive the offers. "For the past several years GM has been aligning its work force with its business needs, and 2005 will be no different," GM spokesman Robert Herta said. In the face of declining market share, weak auto-motive profits and mounting health care and pension costs, DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group also plans to exercise a contract provision to reduce skilled trades workers at some plants.
■ Automotive
Bosch to invest in China
Robert Bosch, the German maker of car parts, is planning to invest 550 million euros (US$736 million) in the next three years to promote its business in China, the head of Bosch's Asian-Pacific activities said yesterday. The investments would expand Bosch's manufacturing in China, in particular at two sites in Wuxi and Suzhou, board mem-ber Rudolf Colm told the Financial Times in an inter-view. Bosch would also spend a further 30 million euros on a television and billboard advertising camp-aign to promote the comp-any's sales of braking and diesel-jnjection systems, Colm said. Bosch aims to increase sales in China from about 1.3 billion euros this year to 5 billion euros by 2013.
■ Economics
US on positive footing
The US economy headed into the end of the year with good momentum, expanding at an annual rate of 4 percent in the third quarter, a faster clip than previously thought. The new reading on the gross domestic product, released on Wednesday by the US commerce department, exceeded the previous estimate of a 3.9 percent growth rate for the July-to-September quarter. It marked the best showing since the opening quarter of this year and was up from a 3.3 percent pace in the second quarter. Brisk spending by consumers and businesses helped the economy expand nicely in the third quarter. For all of this year, the economy is expected to grow by more than 4 percent, which would mark an improvement from last year, when GDP rose by 3 percent. However, economists foresee slower, but still healthy, growth for next year.
■ Retail
Daiei chair to resign
Daiei Inc chairman Kunio Takagi will step down next week when a bailout scheme for the ailing Japanese retail giant is formally approved, a press report said yesterday. Takagi's resignation will take effect on Tuesday when the state-backed Industrial Revitalization Corp of Japan (IRCJ) formally announces the rescue plan involving Daiei's three main creditor banks, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Most of Daiei's current management, including president Toshio Hasumi, are also expected to resign at the end of March when the current business year closes, the leading business daily added. IRCJ reportedly reached a basic agreement with Daiei's creditor banks last Tuesday to provide Japan's third-biggest supermarket chain with financial assistance worth ?597 billion (US$5.7 billion). IRCJ has demande Daiei clarify the account-ability of its management upon receiving the rescue package and executives scheduled to step down will likely decline retirement payments, the daily 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