■ Electronics
Intel, Philips in media tie-up
Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, and Dutch electronics group Philips are setting up a joint initiative to market home entertainment systems with Intel chips, Intel said yesterday. The US chipmaker will supply a processor, chipset and software for a Philips media center that will allow customers to store and share photos, music and video in a single system, as they promote digital products for the home. The PC-based Philips Showline Media Center will include a card that allows users to watch two TV channels at once, as well as a 250-gigabyte hard disk drive for storing music and photo collections and a recorder for DVDs and CDs.
■ Oil industry
Dispute costs Shell US$9.2m
Oil Giant Shell has been forced to pay out US$9.2 million in legal fees and make changes to its corporate governance structure as part of a settlement with disgruntled shareholders. The case pending in New York and New Jersey courts followed the statement from Shell last January that it had overstated its oil and gas reserves in filings with the US regulator, the securities and exchange commission. Shell still faces a much larger and potentially damaging class action suit from a wider group of shareholders as well as investigations by the operator of the Dutch stock market, Euronext, and a state regulator in California.
■ Macroeconomics
China sees export slowdown
China's top development and planning body estimates the country's rapid export growth will begin to slow in the second half of the year as global demand weakens overall, state press said yesterday. "It is expected that significant changes will take place [in export growth] in the second half of this year or in the first half of next year at the latest," the National Development and Reform Commission was cited as saying by the China Securities Journal. It said the country's exports in July rose 30 percent year-on-year to US$65.58 billion -- the lowest monthly increase this year and 5.1 percentage points lower than a year earlier. The growth decline is partly due to a weakening in global demand and China's recent cancellation of tax rebates on high resource-consuming products. Actual foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country fell for four consecutive months. In July, actual FDI fell 4.9 percent from a year ago to US$4.53 billion, the report said.
■ Retail
PRC to legalize direct selling
New legislation will make China's scandal-ridden direct selling industry legal after it was banned nearly a decade ago, a state press report said yesterday. The State Council has laid down a set of stringent rules that will be implemented on Dec. 1 permitting companies to sell directly to the consumer, the Information Times reported. However, to set up a business direct sellers must pay a minimum 20 million yuan (US$2.46 million) deposit and have registered capital of at least 80 million yuan, a Ministry of Commerce official was quoted as saying. Maximum commissions for individuals engaged in direct sales will be 30 percent, up from 25 percent previously before direct sales were banned in 1998, it said. China outlawed direct sales due to widespread pyramid schemes and other fraudulent activities, which in course forced major cosmetic firms like Avon and Amway to sell through retail outlets.
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