■ Entertainment
BMG attracts more bids
Warner Music Group Corp, Universal Music Group and Viacom Inc have made bids for BMG Music Publishing, a unit of German media giant Bertelsmann AG, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation. The final round of an auction for BMG closed on Thursday and the banks running the sale process, Citigroup Inc and JP Morgan Chase and Co, will pick the best offer within the next week, the newspaper said on its Web site. Bertelsmann announced in May it was selling its music unit. The group hopes to pocket more than US$1.3 billion from the sale, which would enable Bertelsmann to repay part of the bank loans taken out to finance its acquisition of a 25 percent stake in its own share capital from Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.
■ Automobiles
Mitsubishi to cut templates
Troubled Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp plans to reduce its number of structural templates for the vehicles it produces from 14 to six in a move to cut costs, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported yesterday. Each of these templates, called a platform, costs tens of billions of yen to develop, and the reduction was expected to shorten the time needed to role out new models, the daily said. Mitsubishi Motors, which now uses four separate platforms for its mini-vehicle lineup alone, plans to consolidate that into one platform, it said. The Tokyo-based company is racing to cut costs as it fights years of red ink brought on by a recall scandal several years ago.
■ Japan
Capital investment up
In more good news for Japan's economy, corporate capital investment jumped 16.6 percent in the April-June quarter from the same period a year ago, the government said yesterday. Stocks rose on the news, with the Nikkei 225 index surging 223.82 points, or 1.39 percent, to finish the day's trading at 16,358.07. The quarterly survey by the Ministry of Finance also showed that corporate profits rose 10.1 percent during the period, while corporate sales increased 8.6 percent. The rise in capital expenditure marked the 13th straight quarter of gains, following a 13.9 percent rise during the January-March quarter and a 9.5 percent increase in the October-December period last year. The data suggest corporate investment, which makes up about 15 percent of GDP, continues to support the world's second-largest economy.
■ Enterprises
Top 500 firms' profits up
China's 500 top businesses saw their combined profits rise 23 percent last year, with strong earnings in banking, petrochemicals and metals industries contributing a large share of the growth, according to a study published yesterday. Of the 647.9 billion yuan (US$81.4 billion) in total profits among the top 500 companies last year, petrochemical, natural gas exploration, banking and ferrous metals companies accounted for almost half, or 313.8 billion yuan, the China Enterprise Confederation said in a report posted on the group's Web site. The state-owned China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (中國石化), also known as Sinopec, was No. 1 with profits of 21.9 billion yuan, up 108 percent over a year earlier. The State Power Grid (國家電力公司), the country's biggest electricity supplier, was second in the list, followed by China National Petroleum Corp (中國石油天然氣), the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行) and China Mobile Ltd (中國移動通信).
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