■ Airlines
Pilot contract talks fail
Two of the US' largest airlines, Delta and Northwest, failed to reach new contract terms with their pilots on Wednesday after marathon negotiations. Without a deal, Northwest's pilots waited for a judge to rule on whether that carrier could throw out their union contract and impose its own terms. In Delta's case, arbitrators will decide that issue after a hearing set to begin March 13. Northwest Airlines Corp did reach a tentative agreement with flight attendants on Wednesday, the day a New York bankruptcy court had set as a deadline.
■ Monetary policy
Japan mulls `reference rate'
The Bank of Japan is considering setting a "reference rate" on inflation to guide markets on its monetary policy intentions, reports said yesterday. The central bank has been wary of introducing a formal inflation target but is mulling a softer goal to improve transparency after it returns to a conventional interest rate policy, Jiji Press and other media reported. The reference rate would be the rate of consumer price inflation deemed desirable to help achieve sustainable economic growth, Jiji quoted anonymous sources as saying.
■ Electronics
Samsung bullish on LCD TVs
Samsung Electronics Co, the world's biggest maker of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), said it expects to increase its share in Asia's LCD television market. "We have seen explosive growth in the demand for LCD TVs in the region," led by Singapore and Australia, Park Sang-jin, president of Samsung's Southeast Asian business, which includes Australia, said in a statement before a media lunch in Singapore. "I envision that every home in Asia will own a Samsung flat panel," Park said, without giving numbers or a timeframe. Samsung projects that Southeast Asia's LCD TV market sales will rise to US$2.4 billion by 2008, according to the statement.
■ Software
Oracle offers search product
Oracle Corp, the world's third-biggest software maker, began selling software that allows users to search only personal data on their work computers such as e-mail, word documents and calendar appointments. Chief executive Larry Ellison said the company's new search program "is one of the biggest products in years," and may help draw users away from Google Inc, which also offers software for searching content on computers and operates the world's most-used Internet search site. "Google's always had a good search, but it was the security side that they're not good at," Ellison told reporters after speaking at the annual Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo 2006 conference in Japan.
■ Technology
Hitachi develops elevator
Japan's Hitachi says it has developed a new elevator system in which six to eight cars can circulate on a single loop, sharing the space conventionally used by two. In the new system, each car moves sideways after reaching the top floor and then descends on the loop before shifting sideways again at the bottom to move up, Hitachi said in a statement. "The new system can save space and reduce passenger waiting time by transporting more than double the number of people compared to a conventional elevator system," it said on Wednesday.
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