■ Tourism
China hot new destination
China has strengthened its ranking among the world's top tourism destinations, outperforming Italy as the 4th most visited country last year, the Madrid-headquartered WTO said yesterday. The order of the world's top three destinations remained unchanged. France leads with 75.1 million tourist arrivals. Spain comes second with 53.6 and the US third with 46.1 million arrivals. China moved from the 5th to the 4th position, achieving an all-time record of almost 42 million tourist arrivals, up 27 percent from the previous year. China thus traded places with Italy, where arrivals declined by more than 6 percent to 37.1 million.
■ Software
Gates tackles data overload
The next wave of Microsoft's flagship Office products, to be released in the second half of next year, may include virtual "workspaces" that let people collaborating on a project update documents and keep track of e-mails, the company said yesterday. Office Communicator, scheduled to be released sometime next month, will bundle e-mail, instant message and other services, letting people switch from text messaging to video chats with the click of a button, the company said at its annual CEO summit. It will also let people work on documents together while they're instant messaging. Helping employees navigate an ever-growing flood of information to boost productivity will be one of the biggest challenges in the next decade, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates told executives. "Nobody's paid to do search or just find information. At the end of the day you're paid for designing a new product, having a satisfied customer and doing that with the minimum amount of time, the minimum amount of people," Gates said.
■ Beverages
Starbucks positive on China
Starbucks Corp expects tea powerhouse China to eventually become the coffee chain's second-biggest market after the US, an executive said yesterday. The company has 9,373 stores worldwide and hopes to expand to 30,000, said Martin Coles, president of the Seattle-based coffee chain's international operations. Coles didn't give a timeline for the expansion. The chain has 120 stores in China now. These stores are in Beijing, Shanghai, the northeastern city of Qingdao and Guangdong Province in the south. The company plans to open stores in the northeastern city of Dalian and the southwestern city of Chengdu within the next six months.
■ Airlines
US carriers to merge
US Airways Group Inc and America West Holdings Corp, the US' seventh and eighth largest carriers, are merging to create an airline designed to better compete with lower-cost competitors. The combined company will fly as US Airways and would become the US' sixth largest airline. It will be funded by US$1.5 billion in new capital from a variety of investors, including aircraft maker Airbus. US Airways has a strong presence on the East Coast, and in the Caribbean, while America West operates across the West from hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas. Doug Parker, chief executive and president of America West Holdings, called the combined company "the first nationwide, full-service, low-cost airline." Parker will become CEO of the new company. Financing for the deal includes a US$250 million loan from European jet maker Airbus.
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