■ Textiles
China decries trade limits
China will protest Turkey's import curbs on Chinese textiles unless the Turkish government keeps its promise to negotiate the scope of the measures bilaterally, Dunya reported. The Chinese government is preparing to file a formal complaint with the WTO about Turkish restrictions, the newspaper reported, citing Yavuz Onay, president of Turkish-Chinese business council. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the conflicts from can be resolved through talks, Xinhua new agency reported on Feb. 3. The Chinese government will start the complaint process if there's no concrete move by Turkey on that promise, Onay told Dunya. Turkey decided to restrict 42 categories of Chinese textiles after unions argued a flood of cheap imports would create unfair competition, Dunya reported on Dec. 24. Under a WTO agreement, a four-decade-old global textile quota system expired at the end of last year.
■ Mobile Phones
Samsung sees better profit
Samsung Electronics Co, Asia's biggest electronics maker by market value, will be able to bring profitability at its phone unit back to "a normal range" of about 15 percent of sales, helped by market share gains, an executive said. That margin fell to 3 percent in the fourth quarter partly because of investments in research and marketing. Those investments are now helping the company gain market share, said Choi Chang-soo, Samsung's head of sales and marketing at the company's telecommunications division, in an interview at a phone industry congress in Cannes, France yesterday. Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung first set the 15 percent target on Jan. 14, saying handset prices and profit margins will rise "significantly."
■ Telecoms
DoCoMo denies PHS pullout
NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, said it hasn't decided to withdraw from the personal handy-phone business. "DoCoMo has not made any such announcement or decision," the Tokyo-based company said yesterday in a faxed statement, responding to an earlier Nihon Keizai newspaper report it will stop offering PHS service in two or three years. DoCoMo, the second-largest provider of PHS access in Japan after Willcom Inc, is losing subscribers to the service, which was developed as a cheaper alternative to other mobile phone services. "If the report is true, it's positive news because the PHS business has an operating loss every year worth several tens of billions of yen," said Yasumasa Goda, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co.
■ Electronics
HP says Q1 profits steady
Hewlett-Packard Co, a week after ousting famed chief Carly Fiorina, said first-quarter profit was little changed, with rising personal computer sales balancing out a fall in printer profits. Net income for HP, the world's largest printer maker, rose US$943 million, or US$0.32 a share, from US$936 million, or US$0.30, a year earlier. Sales rose 9.9 percent to US$21.5 billion, beating analysts' estimates. The company's PC unit, which was bumped to the No. 2 position by Dell Inc last year, doubled earnings as notebook sales rose. Printer profits for the quarter fell. The firm estimated its second-quarter profit at US$0.35 to US$0.37 a share on sales of US$21.2 billion to US$21.6 billion, the company 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