■ Oil
OPEC calls for price cuts
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday called for lower oil prices, suggesting that a "gesture" needed to be made to increase either real production or output quotas at an upcoming gathering of the cartel. Meeting in Brussels with EU officials and ministers, OPEC president Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Sabah voiced concerns that current global oil prices were too high. "Prices should be lower than actual prices by between five and eight dollars" per barrel, Sheikh Ahmed, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, was quoted as saying by Kuwait's official news agency KUNA. The OPEC chief has proposed a 500,000 barrel per day (bpd) hike in the cartel's output ceiling at a meeting next week if prices remain too high.
■ Auto industry
Toyota to hike prices in US
Japan's top carmaker Toyota plans price hikes for almost all the vehicles it sells in the US from October to appease its struggling US rivals, a report said yesterday. Toyota Motor Corp was in the final stages of arranging the US price increases, which would be 2 percent to 3 percent on average, the mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun said without citing sources. Toyota, which overtook Ford to become the world's second-largest automaker in terms of sales last year, plans to raise prices by partly reflecting high steel and other raw material costs and by reducing sales incentives, it said. Toyota chairman Hiroshi Okuda has voiced his readiness to cooperate with US companies amid concern about a revival of the trade friction between Japan and the US in the 1980s. A Toyota spokesman said nothing concrete had been decided.
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
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
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