■ Semiconductors
NEC may miss forecast
Japanese electronics maker NEC Electronics Corp may miss its full-year profit forecast by 39 percent as demand declines for semiconductors used in mobile phones and DVD recorders, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said yesterday. Net income may total ?17 billion (US$164 million) for the year ending March 31, the newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information. That compares with a ?28 billion profit the company projected in October and a ?28.1 billion profit the previous year. Operating profit, or sales minus the costs of goods sold and administrative expenses, may be ?30 billion, 40 percent less than forecast, the paper said. Falling profits at NEC Electronics will force NEC Corp to lower its forecast because NEC relies on the unit for more than 30 percent of its operating profit, the report said.
■ Agriculture
S Korea to boost imports
South Korea has agreed to double rice imports to extend a WTO accord that allows Seoul a grace period of staying out of market-opening, news reports said yesterday. In a deal with key rice exporters, South Korea has agreed to expand the quota from the four percent of its total domestic consumption to 7.9 percent over the next decade until 2014, Yonhap news agency said. The deal, which was wrapped up last week by negotiations with the US, would be announced in the coming week to report it to the WTO, Yonhap said. Independent confirmation was not immediately available. South Korean farmers have protested any moves to expand rice imports, accusing the government of rushing a fresh WTO agreement without consultations with them. Domestic growers say the flooding of cheaper foreign products would drive them out of business.
■ Internet
Christmas virus spreads
An Internet virus disguised as an electronic greeting card is spreading around the world, duping e-mail users with a Merry Christmas message that automatically appears in their native language. The Zafi-D virus has infected 10 percent of e-mail on the net, according to anti-virus firm Sophos, though the vast majority of these messages were automatically filtered out by anti-virus software. The majority of infected computers are in South America and Europe, and as usual it was confined to computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. The e-mail arrives with a subject line of "Merry Christmas" in one of 15 languages depending on the final suffix of the targeted e-mail address.
■ Flat-Panels
Toshiba to end PDP effort
Toshiba Corp will end production of plasma display panel (PDP) televisions after a similar decision by Sony Corp, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. The company will instead make surface-conduction electron-emitter displays, and start selling them for flat TVs with screens of more than 40 inches from the summer in Japan, it said. Sales of plasma displays abroad will be phased out more slowly, it added. Toshiba officials weren't immediately available to comment on the report, which didn't say where it got the information. The company developed the display technology with Canon Inc, the newspaper said. Toshiba also plans a joint venture with Hitachi Ltd and other companies to mass produce liquid-crystal display flat-panel TVs, the report added.
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