■ Shipping
UPS has big plans for China
UPS Inc, the world's largest shipping carrier, said that China is the company's top priority and that the US firm was expanding flights and facilities in the Asian nation that has become a manufacturing powerhouse. John Beystehner, chief operating officer at UPS, said at a conference the company plans to establish a hub in the Chinese financial capital of Shanghai by 2007. The firm's 18 weekly flights in and out of China would expand to 21 next year, he added. By the end of this year, the company's China operations plans to have 3,500 employees, 1,400 vehicles and 75 facilities, Beystehner said.
■ Internet
Intel to aid Boeing service
Intel Corp will help improve and promote Boeing Co's in- flight wireless Internet access system. The companies said in a statement yesterday they tested Intel's Centrino chipset for laptops with the Connexion by Boeing Internet service. Boeing has its service available on more than 100 daily routes. The agreement is aimed at expanding adoption of the in-flight system and helping travelers understand the features. Airlines including Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Singapore Airlines Ltd already offer Boeing's service, which beams the signal over radio waves using Wireless-Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, technology.
■ Steel industry
China's firms to diversify
China's fragmented but burgeoning steel makers have been urged to diversify in overseas markets to prevent trade rows erupting with major producers in the EU, US and South Korea, state press reported yesterday. Domestic steel producers should find more export destinations in order to avoid dumping charges, the China Daily quoted China Iron and Steel Association vice chairman Luo Bingsheng as saying. China's exports of steel products rocketed 154 percent to 11.6 million tonnes in the first half of this year, the steel association said. With South Korea, the US and the EU accounting for 46 percent of the nation's exports, China was running the risk of being accused of dumping. It has repeatedly faced such charges before.
■ forecasts
Japan expects prices to rise
Japan's consumer prices may start to rise at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, central bank Governor Toshihiko Fukui said. While consumer prices continue to decline slightly, "there's a high chance that they will turn positive at the end of this year or the beginning of next as one-off factors wear off," Fukui told lawmakers in parliament in Tokyo yesterday. Japan's core consumer prices, which exclude fresh food and are a benchmark for monetary policy, have only risen once since April 1998. Fukui has pledged not to end the bank's four-year-old policy of holding borrowing costs near zero and pumping cash into the economy until prices stop falling and the bank can be assured they won't resume their declines. So-called "one-off" factors include a reduction of utility costs and lower rice prices which exaggerated declines in prices, economists say. He also said the economy is starting to emerge from a soft patch and the recovery will be sustainable. Fukui reiterated that the bank won't move to shift policy right after the economy's soft patch ends. "Even after the economy overcomes its soft patch, we need time to determine" if the bank can move away from the four- year-old policy, he 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
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
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
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